Huawei will provide cloud computing servers to the Imperial College-Huawei Data Science Innovation Laboratory, a joint investment with the Imperial College London to develop new big data technologies.
The new Data Science Innovation Laboratory will involve experts from across Imperial College London's faculties and Huawei researchers collaborating on data science research and developing new applications in fields such as smart cities, energy and healthcare.
The Lab is the first major corporate partnership between Imperial College London and Huawei. Besides cloud servers, Huawei will invest in a research and innovation fund and foot the lab's operational costs.
The Imperial collaboration is part of Huawei's global investment in innovation and research and development. Every year for the past 10 years, Huawei has invested over 10% of its global revenue into R&D; in 2013 this equated to over $5.4 billion, accounting for more than 14% of revenue.
"Science and research are major contributors to the UK economy and our Universities are central to ensuring that we have the skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) that we need to compete in the global economy," David Willetts, member of the British Parliament, Universities and Science Minister.
"Big data technology is one of the areas where UK universities can take the lead in research and development and that is why I welcome today's announcement of the collaboration between Imperial and Huawei."
Professor Yike Guo, director of the Data Science Institute at Imperial College London, said:
"Imperial's Data Science Institute is a focal point for global collaborations with governments, industry and the academic community. The new Imperial-Huawei Data Science Innovation Lab will show how collaboration between academia and industry can drive innovations in big data to benefit all of our lives.”