MIT cuts funding ties with Huawei and ZTE citing US investigations – South China Morning Post
What happened: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) pauses its funding ties with Chinese telecom equipment makers Huawei and ZTE in light of the US government warning against potential security risks associated with the two companies. MIT’s associate provost Richard Lester and vice-president for research Maria Zuber said in a letter to faculty on Wednesday that MIT “is not accepting new engagements or renewing existing ones with Huawei and ZTE or their respective subsidiaries due to federal investigations regarding violations of sanction restrictions.”
Why it’s important: MIT’s severing of ties follows similar moves by Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and University of Minnesota, which have all cut future research collaborations with Huawei. These actions are in response to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which US President Donald Trump signed into law last August. The act bans recipients of federal funding from using telecoms equipment made by Huawei or ZTE. US universities that fail to comply with the act by August 2020 risk losing federal research grants and other government funding, according to Reuters.