Like a dinner party guest who doesn’t know when to leave, Huawei is still kicking around Canadian universities' research departments.
Driving the news: Chinese tech firm Huawei is still seeking patents for research conducted alongside Canadian universities, over two years after the federal government moved to curb collaborations with countries that pose a risk to national security, per The Globe and Mail.
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The applications involve research tied to the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, Western University, McMaster University, and Queen’s University.
- All the universities, except for Queen’s, are fulfilling terms of past collaborations, which give exclusive commercial rights to Huawei for property created by Canadians.
Catch-up: Canadian universities have collaborated with China for decades, sometimes creating knowledge that has helped drive China’s defence sector in cutting-edge, high-tech industries. CSIS has long been weary about how China uses these joint research programs.
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CSIS has warned that China uses these joint academic research programs to give it an economic and military advantage over other countries, which include Canada.
- While the feds can stop universities from accessing federal grants to collaborate with companies like Huawei, they still can’t stop individual researchers from doing so.
Why it matters: Most universities have committed to stopping research collaborations with Huawei, but existing patents in critical areas, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and 5G wireless, may still need to be honoured by universities in the coming years.—LA