The world's second largest manufacturer of telecom equipment hopes to more than triple its number of Ottawa employees in the next two years.
Huawei opened offices in Ottawa about 15 months ago. However, the company only talked publically about its plans for the capital for the first time during the official opening of it's Ottawa lab on Tuesday.
Carl Lui, the president of the company's Canadian operations, says Huawei currently has 70 employees in Ottawa, but hopes to increase that number to 250 workers within two years.
Across North America, Lui says Huawei plans to add 500 employees.
The company's Ottawa research centre designs cutting edge equipment for its two big Canadian customers, Bell and Telus. Those companies will likely start introducing the designs crafted in Huawei's Ottawa research labs to customers in the next couple of years.
The company, which is based in China, was drawn to Ottawa because of the large pool of talent in the capital. Most of its current Ottawa employees are ex-Nortel workers.
Huawei is a $30-billion company that dominates the four major areas of the telecommunications industry.
