By the end of April 2022, Huawei had recruited more than 20 top “talented teenagers”, mainly in the field of artificial intelligence and algorithms. These “talented teenagers” came from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Wuhan University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, University of Electronic Science and technology, Huazhong University of science and technology and other schools, including two women, with an annual salary of up to 2.01 million yuan.

Author / Wei Yining

Huawei, 35, is still looking for “Teenagers”.

Not long ago, Huawei officially announced that it would provide five times the salary and recruit “talented teenagers” who have made special achievements in mathematics, computer, physics, materials, chips, intelligent manufacturing, chemistry and other fields and are willing to become technology leaders.

Huawei’s “talented youth” program was launched by Ren Zhengfei in 2019. It adopts very strict recruitment standards. At present, it has been given an annual salary of up to 2.01 million yuan. In order to be successfully selected by Huawei, in addition to excellent academic achievements, outstanding scientific research achievements are also required.

Huawei also has special expectations for these people. When proposing the plan, Ren Zhengfei said: “these talented teenagers are like loaches, drilling our organization and activating our team.” Hu houkun, the rotating chairman of Huawei, also said at a public meeting a few days ago: “when it comes to innovation at Huawei, we first think of top talents. We hope to use world-class problems to attract world-class talents to jointly meet challenges and promote scientific and technological progress.”

Huawei has entered the third year of being sanctioned by the United States, and its desire for talents is becoming more and more urgent, but the top talented young people are still hard to find.

Huawei needs talents

In 2020, when Huawei was most severely sanctioned, Ren Zhengfei rarely appeared in public on other occasions, but visited universities frequently.

From July 29 to 31, 2020, Ren Zhengfei led his team to visit Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University, Southeast University and Nanjing University in just three days. From September 14 to 18, Ren Zhengfei visited Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing University of Posts and telecommunications and Beijing University of technology in Beijing.

Intensive visits to schools are due to Huawei’s real desire to rely on talents to achieve technological breakthroughs. It was during the symposium with scientists and student representatives in Beijing that Ren Zhengfei delivered a speech entitled “pierce the sky up and take root down”.

In his speech, Ren Zhengfei said that China’s basic industry is not strong enough. Thousands of adhesives, abrasives and special gases are among the high technologies. The annual demand for many technologies is only tens of millions of dollars, millions of dollars or even less. Under the foam economy, many companies are unwilling to engage in such research, but the lack of a key material will choke a country.

Ren Zhengfei stressed that crossing the river requires boats and bridges. With a good scientific goal, the boatman crossing the river is talent, and talent comes from education.

Visits to schools, discussions and speeches are just expressions of determination. Enterprises and schools still need to establish a long-term mechanism to jointly cultivate talents. In 2020, Ren Zhengfei decided to cooperate with Northwest University of technology to build Hongmeng ecological elite class in order to establish this mechanism.

According to the introduction of Northwest University of technology, Hongmeng ecological elite class focuses its technical direction on the field of terminal software, recruits excellent students from relevant colleges such as computer college, software college, Cyberspace Security College and electronic information college, and customizes exclusive training programs including summer camp training, project practice and scientific and technological innovation plan.

However, it is quite surprising that the preferred University for Huawei to build the first school enterprise cooperation model is Northwest University of technology.

Although Northwestern Polytechnic University is a 985 University, its sense of existence has always been relatively low compared with the more famous Peking University and Tsinghua University. Ren Zhengfei chose Northwestern Polytechnic University instead of Peking University and Tsinghua University.

Peking University and Tsinghua University are the strongest schools in basic science and computer science in China, but many graduates of Qingbei chose to study abroad. Finally, many people stayed in the United States, Japan, Singapore and other countries to work. Ren Zhengfei once said bitterly that sometimes he spent a lot of money to introduce foreign high-tech, but after opening it, he found that “it’s the egg laid by the Chinese chicken” - most of the talents engaged in high-tech R & D for other countries are domestic outflow, many of them from northern Qing Dynasty.

Compared with Peking University and Tsinghua University, where a considerable number of students choose to go abroad, the low-key Northwest University of technology is more suitable for Huawei. It is one of the “seven sons of national defense”. It has a simple school spirit and relatively few brain drain, which is more in line with Huawei’s long-term consideration of “retaining talents”.

In addition to Northwestern Polytechnic University, Huawei’s favorite schools include Huazhong University of science and technology, University of Electronic Science and technology, Xi’an University of Electronic Science and technology and Wuhan University of technology. These relatively low-key schools have high recognition in the industry.

Huazhong University of science and technology is also known as “Huawei’s mother’s home”. Four of Huawei’s 17 board members, including Meng Wanzhou and Hu houkun, graduated from Huazhong University of science and technology; The University of Electronic Science and technology and Huawei have jointly established the “Hisilicon Zhiyuan class”, and Huawei has entered the top three employment units of the University of Electronic Science and technology for three consecutive years; Xi’an University of Electronic Science and technology has strong strength in the field of communication. In 2019, it signed an agreement on deepening strategic cooperation with Huawei; Wuhan University of technology has strong software science strength. In 2019 and 2020, more than 200 fresh students from Wuhan University of technology entered Huawei.

It is these universities that have exported a steady stream of young people to Huawei.

Huawei’s genius

But young people are not enough. Huawei needs talents. When it comes to Huawei’s earliest genius, Li Yinan is an unforgettable name.

In the 1990s, Li Yinan, who was admitted to the youth class of Huazhong University of Technology (now Huazhong University of science and Technology) at the age of 15, joined Huawei through internship. At that time, Huawei had just entered the communication market. With the income from independent research and development, Huawei began to provide scholarships to Huake university to recruit excellent graduates and interns.

In 1993, Li Yinan officially entered the post after graduation. He was promoted to Huawei Engineer in two days and chief engineer in half a month. In 1996, when he was 26, he was personally appointed as executive vice president by Ren Zhengfei.

Huawei, which advocates “wolf culture”, can grow rapidly, which shows Li Yinan’s ability. During his seven years at Huawei, Huawei’s annual revenue soared from 400 million to 200 million