The US government has blocked chip makers including Qualcomm and Intel from selling any processors to Huawei, according to Bloomberg. On the one hand that could set back Huawei’s PC, smartphone, and tablet divisions in the coming years. On the other, Huawei’s been preparing for this for years and has already begun making chips and software for its devices in-house.
While this isn’t the first time that the US has restricted chip sales to Huawei, it seems to be a dramatic tightening of restrictions. It seems to be the “total ban” we were hearing about earlier this year.
After initially banning shipments to the Chinese electronics company during the Trump administration, the US government eventually granted licenses to companies allowing them to ship some processors to Huawei.
For example, Qualcomm was blocked from sending chips with 5G networking capabilities, but in 2020 the US granted Qualcomm a license to chip 4G chips to Huawei. And Intel has had a license to chip some PC chips since 2020.
Last month Huawei introduced a new MateBook X Pro laptop powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H or Core Ultra 9 185H processors based on Intel’s latest “Meteor Lake” architecture, a move that rankled some Republican in Congress. Revoking the license is allegedly part of an effort to prevent Chinese companies from leveraging advancements in emerging categories like AI (both Qualcomm and Intel are making integrated neural processing units a big selling point for their latest chips).
I can’t help but wonder though, if these restrictions will just lead to Huawei and other Chinese companies continuing to develop their own home-grown alternatives, effectively reducing China’s reliance on Western companies.
Meanwhile Intel has already lowered its revenue forecast in response to the new restrictions.
“US blocks Intel and Qualcomm from selling chips to Huawei”
There’s no better way to boost China’s chip industry. A missed opportunity to sell China chips that spy on them! American idiots.
Qualcomm and Intel can always sell to other Chinese companies, and Huawei can purchase the chips from those. Problem solved!
Surely the policymakers thought of that? Surely?! Hahahaha
I hope AMD is able to sell more to Huawei, at higher prices.
No coffee for Brad today…. xD
Intel and Qualcomm in the title, I guess? And first paragraph.
Yeah, as it was already written – this is coming at the tail end of a failed trade war strategy.
Back years ago when Trump was still president and the whole trade war thing started, several security and market analysts including one article published by Google, which I’m not sure if it’s up anymore, warned about the exact thing that is currently already happening.
It basically said that even if these blocks and bans could temporarily disable Huawei’s international market, which it kinda didn’t – that at the time was quickly raising the ranks to become the number 1 smartphone and telecom equipment seller -, the company is big enough to accelerate production of in house substitutes and raise the ranks once again, this time unimpeded by US mandated bans. Which is what they did.
Huawei accelerated development of Harmony OS, Huawei’s own HiSilicon chips are already being used in the market, other China based chip makers also stepped up development (like Mediatek or Unisoc, both being used extensively in budget and mid range devices), and Huawei is raising smartphone sales quickly after the ban.
Even if they can’t sell to the US or other western allied nations, which doesn’t really matter because Huawei was never a huge brand in those anyways, the company has a huge internal market, plus several other Asian nations.
Huawei is a company closer to the size of Samsung or Sony rather than Apple in range. Conglomerate multinational with branches all over the place. You know how Sony manages to maintain a smartphone division despite years of poor sales and being the worst performing portion of the company? That’s the position Huawei is in. It sells enough stuff in infrastructure, solar panels, other electronics, consulting, and multiple other stuff, that it can sustain a sector at a loss and keep investing in R&D until it turns things around once again.
So, Biden can keep putting money on this losing bet. It won’t make a difference. Particularly when this company can just start selling flagship stuff at a fraction of the price of the competition just because. Whatever market the company had in western nations, it was mostly because of price – both in smartphones and telecom equipment.
So even if US blocks Huawei completely, it’s a whole other story convincing other countries to do the same.
Well, that’s a logical fallacy.
If an entity misbehaves, do you withhold any punishment because you know it’s not effective? Nope, you still need to try. Your analysis almost reads like propaganda.
Years ago there was a leaked report from the Australians with some of their infrastructure being built using Huawei equipment, with it having backdoors. The conspiracy theorists lapped it up then. However in time, those “crazy” conspiracy theorists were actually proven true.
Now that was then, Chinese Government has become even bolder years passing. Even more telling is HOW they obtained this level of network influence. Well it came with the decay of Canada, when the Chinese Military used spies and hacking to access Nortel Corporation. They managed to steal next-generation information and intellectual property about this 4G-LTE networking. This is very different to 3G, and is not a matter of upgrading towers but rebuilding them and the network. By leveraging their big factory assembly, government funding from China, and bypassing hundreds of millions in R&D, well Huawei started offering their networks at a fraction of the cost from Nortel, Ericsson, Nokia, and other corporations. They used this headstart to also headhunt key engineers, licensing, and co-develop their 5G networks (which could be upgradeable from 4G).
And they are using their newfound position to expand their networks in South-East Asia, South America, Africa, Middle-East, and parts of Asia. Russia was actually the first to disregard them, by keeping their networks somewhat centralised. And effectively Huawei networks have been banned from the Five Eyes and most of Europe.
With this all said, the CIA as a branch of the USA Government have engaged in similar things. The first that comes to mind is the Cisco systems that had backdoors. I’m not saying two wrongs make a right. But with the USA situation, they do have some layer of separation between the government and control. This is absent in China, where the central authorities basically have absolute power, and they can and do exercise that. I’m not opposed to Huawei or China, I want them in the market, and I want good quality products, services, and prices.
However, I don’t want these to be instruments of WW3. And with the people in power being very rich and intelligent, but lacking in actual wisdom and leadership… well it gets harder to fathom the outcomes. I hope this comment sheds some context to this complicated issue, have a great day.
You’re right. The policy has created a thriving Chinese chip industry where virtually none existed before. You could argue that without sanctions Huawei would have destroyed Apple and Samsung in the phone market, but I’m not sure that would have happened.
“US blocks Intel and Huawei from selling chips to Huawei”
Huh… US blocks Huawei from selling chips to Huawei? Yeah, good luck with that.
Brad, you may want to recheck your title.