Tech giant Huawei in Kitchener? Analysts: Yes; Huawei: Maybe

Many believe a monster technology company could expand its Canadian operations into Kitchener.

Huawei has a job posting for a Research Director located in the region on the Chinese Telecom giant’s website and one of its responsibilities is to, “grow and lead an elite level team”.

There has been speculation online Huawei would soon open an office in Blackberry’s backyard like they have in Markham, Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton.

Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Huawei Canada, Scott Bradley, wouldn’t say if there is any truth to the rumours.

“I would say at this point, what we announced back on November 1st when Premier Wynne visited our facilities in Beijing,” says Bradley. “[She announced] we would be hiring 250 new engineers in the province of Ontario over the next five years.”

Despite stopping short of confirming the company’s expansion into Waterloo Region, Bradley, says they’re interested.

“Certainly as part of the process of looking at where we may expand our operations in the province, we’ve been looking at Kitchener/Waterloo and obviously that job posting reflects our interest in the region,” says Bradley. “But at this point we haven’t yet made a formal decision, what operations, or formal operations, if any would be based in Kitchener/Waterloo.”

In September, Huawei hired former Blackberry Senior Vice President of Security as its new Senior Vice President of Device and Enterprise Security.

“Just as Nortel in Ottawa, Blackberry has really helped to establish that tech hub,” says Bradley. “It’s the reason Google and other companies are looking at Kitchener/Waterloo as a place to potentially build operations.”