Carleton celebrated its $1.4 million deal to establish a new cloud computing research centre with telecommunications company Huawei Sept. 21.
Along with Telus Corp., the school plans to open the Huawei-TELUS Innovation Centre for Enterprise Cloud Services this fall.
“Canada has a strong heritage in technology innovation, so Huawei certainly hopes to do more to fulfill our commitment to the country and to this school,” said Huawei Canada president Sean Yang.
The celebratory event, Huawei Technologies Day, showcased the company’s mobile lab and cutting edge technology, which students can expect to see in the future lab.
Students were able to tour the mobile lab, set up in an 18-wheel truck on Carleton’s Library Road next to the Canal Building, and learn about the hardware and theory behind the systems.
This is the first cloud computing investment Huawei has made with a Canadian school, Yang said.
“This is definitely one of the big technology trends, and we want to make sure students can connect and become aware of it,” said Rafik Goubran, dean of Carleton’s faculty of engineering.
Many fourth-year undergraduate students, master’s and PhD students have already signed up to work in topics related to cloud computing at the research centre, Goubran said.
Included in the queue is fourth-year computer systems engineering student Kerrie Newton, who attended the celebration with some of his classmates.
“I’m impressed with the number of hardware involved,” Newton said. “I definitely think Carleton could utilize and benefit from Huawei’s services.”
But selling isn’t currently the main goal, Yang said. For now, the lab will be dedicated to its research and building connections with the Carleton community.
“[This partnership] will not just help our facilities, but to enable us to find future employees and help us with training,” he said.