The US government has reportedly revoked Qualcomm and Intel’s licenses to sell chips to Huawei, according to a new report from Reuters today. The US Department of Commerce issued a statement saying it had “withdrawn certain licenses for exports to Huawei” without specifying details.
If today’s report is accurate, it likely means that Huawei will no longer be able to use chips from Qualcomm or Intel, making it challenging for them to produce laptops in the future unless they find a workaround.
Huawei MateBook X Pro 2024
The revocation of the licenses is effective immediately, raising concerns about how many MateBook X Pro laptops Huawei can still sell, depending on the stock of Intel chips they currently possess since no more will be coming in.
Qualcomm, Intel, and Huawei have not provided any comments yet. This situation is developing, so updates may come in the following hours or days.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed opposition to the US’s actions, stating, “China firmly opposes the United States’ misuse of national security concepts and export controls to unjustly suppress Chinese companies.”
Huawei’s troubles began in 2019 when it was placed on a US trade restriction list over spying concerns. Subsequently, Huawei’s suppliers were required to obtain difficult-to-obtain special licenses before shipping to the company, and these licenses have now reportedly been withdrawn for Qualcomm and Intel.
In 2020, both Qualcomm and Intel were granted licenses, with Qualcomm restricted to selling older 4G chips to Huawei. Despite this, Huawei continued to pay Qualcomm for licensing its 5G technology as part of a patent agreement until Qualcomm’s fiscal 2025. It is unclear if any of this technology was used in developing Huawei’s latest Kirin chips for smartphones.