Sprint Nextel is excluding China’s Huawei Technologies (華為) and ZTE Corp (中興) from a multibillion US dollar contract to upgrade its cellular network largely because of national security concerns in Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The newspaper said the Pentagon and some US lawmakers are increasingly concerned about ties between the two Chinese telecommunications-equipment makers and the Chinese government and military.
Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Journal said the US Department of Defense and lawmakers are concerned about the security implications of letting the Huawei and ZTE equipment into critical US infrastructure.
The newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying China’s military could use Huawei or ZTE equipment to disrupt or intercept US communications.
US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke (駱家輝) called Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse this week to discuss concerns about awarding the work to a Chinese firm, but did not ask Sprint to exclude the Chinese suppliers, the Journal said.
The Journal said the US Department of Defense (DOD) declined to discuss Huawei or ZTE, but said it “is very concerned about China’s emerging cyber capabilities and any potential vulnerability within or threat to DOD networks.”
The Journal quoted an unidentified source as saying security concerns played a key role in Sprint’s decision to exclude Huawei and ZTE, but there were also doubts about the ability of Chinese firms to execute the job.
The newspaper said Huawei and ZTE had submitted bids that were lower than their competitors, Alcatel-Lucent, Telefon LM Ericsson of Sweden and South Korea’s Samsung.
The Journal said the highest bids to modernize Sprint’s existing cellular network came in at around US$8.5 billion, more than the company, the third-largest US wireless carrier by number of subscribers, is willing to pay.
The newspaper said Sprint is now renegotiating with Samsung and Alcatel-Lucent in the hopes they will submit lower bids.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day