Washington, July 15

Facing the heat owing to the ongoing US-China trade war, telecommunications giant Huawei is reportedly preparing to lay off hundreds of workers in the US.

Huawei is planning to lay off workers at a research facility called Futurewei Technologies that employs 850 people in research labs including in Texas, California and Washington state, The Verge reported on Sunday citing the Wall Street Journal as saying.

"Some employees have apparently already been notified that they will be let go, with other layoffs planned in the near future," the report said.

The White House has said that Chinese tech giant will remain banned from developing its 5G wireless networks in the US, although American firms will be allowed to sell small components such as chips to the Chinese company.

President Donald Trump's administration will continue to prohibit Huawei from marketing its 5G Internet technology in the US, which Washington fears the company might use to spy for the Chinese government.

Currently, Huawei is very popular in Europe and is leading in the fight for control of 5G wireless networks which will enable users to surf the Internet much more quickly and could facilitate the development of self-driving vehicles, techniques for performing surgery by remote control and other procedures that it now puts within reach.

In the face of that, the US is leading a global campaign to prevent Huawei from developing 5G technology and has been pressuring the European Union (EU) to restrict the firm's activities.

At the G20 summit in Japan last month, Trump said American firms could start selling technology to the Chinese telecommunications equipment giant as long as the sales did not involve equipment that threaten the national security.

Huawei to lay off hundreds of workers in US