In a wide-ranging discussion held at the company's Shenzhen headquarters, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, together with two American tech gurus, George Gilder and Nicholas Negroponte, addressed some of the most pressing issues facing Huawei and the society.

Below are some of the key quotes from the discussion. The three discussed issues ranging from how Huawei will deal with the U.S. trade ban to security concerns about Huawei's 5G network. The two tech gurus also provided their insights on what society will look like in the age of AI and blockchain technology.

On disruption to Huawei's supply chain:

Ren Zhengfei:

"It didn't occur to us that the U.S. government is so determined to take extreme measures against Huawei. It didn't occur to us that they would take such a wide range of measures to restrict Huawei. But we believe these restrictive measures would not stop our way."

On Huawei's future:

Ren Zhengfei:

"In the next two years, we will reduce our capacity. Our revenue will be down by about 30 billion U.S. dollars. So our sales revenue this year and next will be about 100 billion U.S. dollars. By 2021 we may regain our growth momentum to contribute more to human society."

"In the next five years, we are going to invest 100 billion U.S. dollars to reshape the network architecture so that the network will be simpler, faster and most trustworthy."

"If we have some financial challenge, we would not reduce our research and development investment. We would reinvent ourselves to contribute to human society."

"We would not have spin-off or sale. We might shrink our size. And we can reallocate our people from non-core business to core business. Huawei would not reduce our headcount substantially, but business consolidation has been ongoing."

On Huawei's 'Sputnik moment':

Nicholas Negroponte: 

"As a teenager, I experienced Sputnik. It's very interesting because Sputnik caused the United States to do things that it wasn't already doing, so this is your Sputnik moment. What the United States has done created Huawei's Sputnik. You are going to wake up and do things and there is no going back."

"I saw again in the 1980s with Japan. There was a whole period when Japan was this enemy, and we were not supposed to collaborate. Now we are going through a Japan moment in China. And I hope that plays itself out."

On backdoors:

Nicholas Negropronte:

"Our president has said publicly that he would reconsider Huawei if we can make a trade deal, so clearly it is not about national security, because we don't trade national security."

Ren Zhengfei:

"[There is] 100 percent no backdoor in Huawei equipment. We can sign no backdoor agreements with all governments that are willing to enter into this. Why don't they sign with Huawei first? They can take Huawei as an example of negotiating with others (equipment providers)."

On technological Cold War and China-U.S. decoupling:

George Gilder:

"It's the United States that will suffer from any efforts to 'decouple'… What we see here in historic terms, is merely the incumbent established technology power, the United States, challenged by an ascendant power, China. And we are trying to beat them back. That's a terrible, suicidal mistake for the U.S. to make. So I'm being pro-American when I say, America has got to deal with Huawei and with the existence of challengers around the world."

"It's false [to think] that the U.S. is in an impregnable position that it doesn't have to collaborate with China and other countries around the world. It is an illusion from years gone by. And we have to get over it if we are going to accept the challenges of the future and accomplish the goals we have."

Nicholas Negropronte:

"If you look at the media lab, it's 60 percent foreign students. So when people say, wait a minute, you are training our competition. No. We are elevating the whole world."

"It is so old-fashioned to think that when you have something then I don't. Unfortunately, President Trump thinks that way. He doesn't think in a way that we can both have it, and we can elevate it and go up."