9621 Agnes Crossing, Lake Suzanneview, New Mexico Island 84604-9295.
Huawei has been a key player in China for years, but its trajectory over the past two years has made it a key player in the country’s technology
Huawei has been a key player in China for years, but its trajectory over the past two years has made it a key player in the country’s technology landscape. It has given new impetus to the trade war with the US by showing its technology is more advanced than the West believes with the controversial Mate 60 Pro, has once again risen to the top in sales and is the creator of an artificial intelligence chip designed to compete with Nvidia’s dominance.
They have made an impressive investment in R&D in recent months, resulting in the new Shanghai campus, essentially a city of 30,000 employees. The Shanghai Research Center is impressive, but the Ox Horn Campus is even more impressive. That’s about A complex with 20,000 employees Not only is it huge and requires electric trains to move between its buildings, but it also imitates the architectural style of other cities.
Because basically Huawei copied some of the most representative elements of 12 European cities and turned it into an amusement park where they developed technology.
Located on Songshan Lake in Guangdong, the Ox Horn Campus covers a huge area of 120 hectares. It was put into operation a few years ago, in 2019, but it is still an impressive work in 2024. Ox Horn is also known as Xicun and ‘Huawei Europe City‘ and cost 40 billion yuan (about 5.1 billion euros). In fact, it is similar to the cost of Apple’s ‘spaceship’.
Corporate campuses of this size are usually miniature cities with buildings named after them, other buildings organized into neighborhoods, lots of green space, recreational areas, and cafes, but Ox Horn is the pharaoh. First of all, it has 12 districts, each with its own architecture, neighborhoods, and distinctive buildings.
And the most special thing we are talking about: each of these districts is based on a European city or region. These are:
There are some very well-known cities, but Windermere is a lake and both the German city of Heidelberg and the Czech city of Krumlov, with a population of only 13,000, may not be so well-known. The entire design was by Jin Feng and the interior is magnificent. First of all, the districts have railway stations and three lines (A, B and C) that run regularly between them.
Although each employee’s workplace is in one of the districts, some have more cafeterias, different restaurants, gyms or unique recreational areas than others, making it an easy way to move employees from one to another. There is also a bike sharing system if you prefer to get around that way.
And when we say Huawei copies European cities, we are not just talking about architectural style, but also about original scale copies of characteristic buildings. Paris is full of administrative buildings in the architectural style of the French city center and a copy of the Cité Internationale Universitaire. Oxford is the same as English buildings and a copy of Big Ben. We also have Heidelberg Castle, and even the tram is inspired by the design of the Swiss Jungfrau.
Besides the buildings, Huawei has also planted different species to bring life to the campus, and the green areas are populated by some animals.
Interestingly enough, perhaps considering how good the food in Granada is, most of the restaurants are in the area dedicated to the Andalusian city. Huawei claims to have restaurants offering flavours from all over the world. This is something that also happens in its new megacampus, and is a strategy to attract workers from all over the country.
If you’ve been to Granada, you may recognize some corners of the Albaicín, as well as the (apparently) life-size replica of the Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra. Why the Palace of Charles V and not the Patio de los Leones? I have no idea, though.
While Huawei may seem like an extravagance, the truth is that China has many replicas of European cities in its geography. Thames Town is inspired by typical British residential neighborhoods; Tianducheng is a miniature Paris (with its own Eiffel Tower); there’s a Florence-inspired shopping mall called Florentia Village in Tianjin; and a bar area in Beijing that’s a collage of German architecture. Even the White House in Hangzhou.
And the truth is, we don’t know if China will stop “taking inspiration” from Western cities when it comes to creating attractive neighborhoods, but the situation could become even more complicated with the introduction of laws that aim to combat ‘weird architecture’. Seeing that the values of Chinese architecture are beginning to fade and skyscrapers are beginning to dominate, China has limited the height to avoid creating lopsided skylines.
Before that (although the Huawei campus is already under construction), Xi Jinping wanted to restrict Western-inspired and eccentric buildings by law. The current president has been very critical of such buildings and wants more conservative designs that local governments would approve.
No matter what the truth is, not only Huawei’s Ox Horn center is the most eye-catching, but also passing through Jiangyan, finding an exact copy of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Images | Huawei, CNHowey (2) (3)
In Xataka | US bans companies from working with Huawei technology. The biggest victim: the Pentagon itself
Source: Xatak Android
Ashley Johnson is a science writer for “Div Bracket”. With a background in the natural sciences and a passion for exploring the mysteries of the universe, she provides in-depth coverage of the latest scientific developments.
