Huawei's Songshan Lake campus, an R&D hub in Songshan Lake, Dongguan, Guangdong Province, about 1 hour by car from Shenzhen, China, has been developed as a large-scale town connected by an on-site railway serving 12 areas. The site covers approximately 1.3 million square meters and is home to 25,000 R&D employees.
Construction of the Songshan Lake campus began in 2015 and was completed in 2018. The site covers approximately 1.3 million square meters and is divided into 12 areas.
Each area features buildings modeled on European streetscapes, including a library designed in the style of Paris City Hall. Signs for FamilyMart, 7-Eleven and KFC can be seen along the streets.
The areas are connected by 3 circular private railway lines. The shortest, Line 1, makes a circuit of 8 towns in 13 minutes. The library houses 110,000 books, mainly in Chinese and English.
The European-style streetscapes are reportedly intended to create an environment where the many foreign employees can be reminded of their home countries. Huawei has also indicated a policy of constructing Chinese-style buildings at its overseas sites.
Some areas of the campus conduct acoustic research, using anechoic chambers to reproduce subway and aircraft cabin noise and measure call quality.