Germany to Strip Huawei From Its 5G Networks

Huawei and ZTE exhibition booths at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai last week. Germany follows other European countries in banning Chinese components from telecom infrastructure.

The German government said on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with major telecom companies to have them stop using critical Huawei and ZTE components in their 5G mobile infrastructure in five years, the latest step by a European country to ban Chinese companies from critical telecommunications infrastructure.

“We are protecting the central nervous system of the German economy — and we are protecting the communication of citizens, companies and the state,” Nancy Faeser, the interior minister, said in a news conference in Berlin on Thursday.

The agreement with the telecom companies — Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica — comes in two steps. First, use of Chinese-made critical components will be discontinued from core parts of the country’s 5G networks by the end of 2026. Then, the parts made by Chinese manufacturers will be phased out from antennas, transmission lines and towers by the end of 2029.

“There is no specific evidence or scenario that Huawei’s technology has cybersecurity risks,” a spokeswoman for Huawei said in a statement, adding that the company would continue to “promote the construction of mobile networks and digitalization in Germany.”