He commented on the company’s US battles only indirectly, thanking the press for “all the attention” in recent months, before delving into the key place Huawei holds in the global industry.

The company was one of the first to begin developing 5G standards “from the year 2010 when there was commercial deployment of 4G, we started to invest in 5G”. At the time, there was “no standard, let alone application scenarios” for the next-generation technology.

“When Huawei was doing 5G R&D, we were confronted with many unprecedented situations”, he explained.

Today, the vendor is reaping the benefit of that early start. In addition to winning 50 contracts and deploying more than 150,000 base stations, Hu noted it has also built up a portfolio of more than 2,570 patents, some 20 per cent of the global total around the technology.

Those patents cover infrastructure, terminals and chipsets, which Hu said makes Huawei the only vendor offering a true end-to-end solution for the technology.

Hu explained China is going through a transformation for which 5G is a key enabler, because the higher speeds and lower latency offered by the technology is enabling new services across a wide range of industries.

“I think all industries would benefit from a change in utilisation and approach from all these technologies. 5G will be an important foundation for China’s digital economy.”

Huawei established XLabs, a “new generation platform” located in Shanghai through which the vendor is using to “work with different industries to develop solutions” for example in healthcare and finance.

Hu said the facility enables Huawei to discuss how best to use 5G to benefit individual industries, whether big or small.

As China clears the way for the launch of commercial 5G services, Hu said the company feels it has “a lot of responsibilities”, many of which will be addressed through such open working, he added.