The US government has reportedly revoked Qualcomm and Intel's licenses to sell chips to Huawei, according to a new report from Reuters Today. Although the US Department of Commerce issued a statement saying it had “revoked certain licenses for exports to Huawei”, no names were mentioned.
But if today's report is true, it most likely means that Huawei won't be able to use chips from Qualcomm or Intel in the future, which will essentially prevent it from making any more laptops unless there's a solution that doesn't . yet detailed.
Huawei MateBook
The revocation of the permits is apparently effective immediately, raising the question of how many of them have been announced recently MateBook laptops that the Chinese company can sell (which depends on how many Intel chips it already has in its possession, as there are no more coming).
Qualcomm, Intel and Huawei have not yet responded with comment, but this is a developing story so that could change in the coming hours or days.
China's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying: “China firmly opposes the United States' exaggeration of the concept of national security and abuse of export controls to suppress Chinese companies without justification.”
Huawei's troubles began in 2019, when it was placed on a U.S. trade restriction list, a move justified by fears it could spy on Americans. As a result of this move, Huawei's suppliers had to apply for a special, and reportedly difficult to obtain, license before they could ship – and such licenses have now reportedly been revoked for Qualcomm and Intel.
These two companies received their respective licenses in 2020, but Qualcomm was only able to sell older 4G chips to Huawei. However, Huawei is still paying Qualcomm to license its portfolio of 5G technologies, part of a patent deal that expires in Qualcomm's 2025 fiscal year. It's unclear whether that was partly used to develop Huawei's latest Kirin chips for smartphones or not.