Imperial College London and Chinese telecoms provider Huawei are planning a research partnership in which academics and business experts join forces to pursue developments in “big data” technology.

The venture, which has UK government backing, was formally announced on Tuesday with the signing of a memorandum of understanding by Sir Keith O’Nions, president of Imperial College, and William Xu, chief executive of Huawei’s Enterprise Business Group.

The two parties will spend a year working on the outline for a joint research and development hub, based at Imperial’s new campus in White City, west London. The research centre could also be used for public demonstrations of data science innovations, which are expected to focus on energy, healthcare and life sciences.