Huawei is cutting 600 jobs – 70% of its total workforce – at Futurewei its US R&D arm.

Huawei gave as the reason the “curtailment of business operations” as a result of the US DoC putting it on the Entity List of companies with restricted access to purchasing US tech components and services. 

Under Entity List restrictions, Futurewei would not be able to transfer back to Huawei China any technology developments made in the US.

Futurewei employed 850 people in the US before the cuts. It has offices in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Dallas and Chicago.

It had a budget of $510 million a year.

Since setting up in the US in 2001 Futurewei  has filed 2,100 patents.

Chinese direct  investment in the US fell to a nine-year low of $5.4 billion in 2018, down 88% from an all-time high of $46.5 billion in 2016, says analyst Rhodium Group.