Chinese high-tech giant Huawei is showing an ability to keep making deals, even as it copes with a pressure campaign from the Trump administration that threatens to shut down its business in the U.S.
Four days after President Trump temporarily eased some restrictions on Huawei as part of a trade truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Japan, Huawei officials have announced a powerful partnership with fellow Chinese tech giant Baidu.
The Chinese tech giants will explore the artificial intelligence sector by working with Baidu’s deep-learning platform PaddlePaddle and Huawei’s mobile AI chipset Kirin.
In May, the Commerce Department put Huawei on a watchlist for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. The Trump administration also claimed Huawei could be a security risk because of the company’s ties to China’s intelligence and military services.
A senior U.S. official reportedly told enforcement staff at the Commerce Department this week that Huawei should still be treated as blacklisted.
The two companies said at the conference that they will work together to create faster and smarter experiences for users while maximizing functions in related AI products.
The state-controlled Chinese news website Global Times reported analysts said the partnership will help build a core technology base for the domestic artificial intelligence industry. In 2017, Baidu and Huawei announced a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement that aimed to create an “open mobile and AI ecosystem built on shared success and spurring development of new applications for AI.
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