There’s another whole new chapter within the Huawei story as the United States plans to deprive the Chinese company of 4G and Wi-Fi 6 as well
In 2019, the US added Huawei to a trade blacklist, making it necessary for US businesses to obtain a special license in order to conduct business.
Licenses were given to companies like Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD, with the latter being permitted to only distribute 4G chipsets (which we have seen in recent Huawei P and Mate series models).
Early in President Biden’s administration, licenses were still being issued, but insiders now claim that the US is looking to increase the list of prohibited items.
Wi-Fi 6 and 7 technology, 4G technology, artificial intelligence technology, high-performance computing, and cloud computing are reportedly among the new additions. One insider claims that new licenses for 4G products are already being rejected.
The Commerce Department is attempting to cancel all expired licenses, according to one tech expert. Additionally, those licenses will eventually expire even if it doesn’t state it explicitly.
The restrictions applied to technology for nodes more advanced than 14nm and in some cases even 16nm when Biden first introduced new export controls on machinery used to manufacture semiconductors in October.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, Japan and the Netherlands are supporting US efforts and will prohibit their domestic companies from exporting equipment to China. These limitations are meant to stunt the development of China’s domestic semiconductor market.
Due to the company’s inability to locate a foundry that doesn’t use US-based technology, Huawei has already stated that Kirin will not be returning, at least not this year.
The company had to change from producing networking hardware and smartphones to other products. For instance, it has entered the cloud computing industry, which may soon be the subject of US sanctions.
When the trade restrictions started to take effect in 2021, Huawei saw a significant decline in revenue (its revenue dropped by a third). However, it has remained largely stable ever since, posting $91.53 billion in total revenue in December 2022.
On specifics of upcoming export and trade restrictions, the US Commerce Department made no comments.
