A top global ICT solutions company and Imperial will collaborate and invest on a data science lab. The research will be in areas such as energy, healthcare and smart cities. David Willetts, Universities and Science Minister said: ““Science and research are major contributors to the UK economy and our Universities are central to ensuring that we have the skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) that we need to compete in the global economy. Big Data technology is one of the areas where UK universities can take the lead in research and development and that is why I welcome today’s announcement of the collaboration between Imperial and Huawei” The CEO of of Huawei Enterprise, William Xu said: “Investing in innovation is central to Huawei’s business strategy and this exciting collaboration will help us stay at the cutting edge of data science developments. Imperial College is a global institution with unrivalled knowledge in this field. By bringing its experts together with our engineers we believe we can create new products and services that will harness the huge potential of big data. This collaboration with Imperial also bolsters the wider partnership programme we have with British universities, which includes working with other institutions around the UK on the 5G technologies that will revolutionise how we communicate in the future.”