Huawei talking to Russian Information Security Firms For Hardware, OS Cooperation

Chinese firm Huawei has been holding talks with Russian information security companies to collaborate with them over hardware and Operating Systems (OS) after being shunned by their American counterparts.

Over the past few months, Huawei has contacted several Russian firms, including the developers of Elbrus processors and Basalt SPO, MCST micro-processor company, as well as a producer of software and information security equipment.

“The Chinese are interested in using the Elbrus processor in hardware, such as servers. However, negotiations are still at a nascent stage,” RBC reported, quoting sources as saying on Wednesday.

Moscow-based Basalt SPO is a company that develops a software platform to produce Alt processing systems, which are being used in Russian operating systems for workstations and servers.

“Huawei wants to license Alt operating systems in order to use them in its own computers and servers. Negotiations have been ongoing for several months already, with both sides strongly interested in cooperation,” one of the sources said.

Huawei computers and servers will reportedly be sold both in Russia and in Asian markets once the Alt licensing process is complete.

“We are interested in cooperating with large international corporations,” general director of Basalt SPO, Aleksey Smirnov, said. Smirnov declined to divulge any other details.

Huawei reportedly started negotiating a replacement for Android OS with the Aurora OS which is currently being developed by Russian Mobile Platform in June. The possibility of installing the Aurora operating system on Huawei smartphones has even been discussed during a meeting of Russian and Chinese leaders. They have also talked about the potential localization of some of Huawei’s production facilities in Russia. Huawei has also launched a pilot 5G project with the Russian telecom MTS.