Washington (CNN) The US has underscored to Germany its threat to limit intelligence sharing with countries that use Chinese tech giant Huawei to build their 5G communications networks. Analysts and industry executives say Huawei has already built up such a strong lead in 5G technology that it's practically irreplaceable for many wireless carriers. Germany's March 7 announcement that it will not bar any companies from bidding to build the country's 5G networks follows a similar decision by the United Kingdom. "The 5G networks our allies buy won't be the networks that they eventually operate, as the software could be changed on a moment-to-moment basis by the manufacturer." In February, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the costs of adopting Huawei technology explicit to European colleagues.

Source: CNN March 11, 2019 23:07 UTC