Bloomberg: Huawei receives billions for chip production, now working more closely with government after sanctions

After being largely driven out of the international smartphone and modem market by massive US sanctions, Huawei is poised for a comeback, Bloomberg reports. Rumors have been circulating over the past few months that Huawei is building a secret semiconductor factory in China and planning to subsequently offer 5G smartphones again.

According to Bloomberg, Huawei is at the center of China's efforts to become independent of other countries' technology in chip production in order to avoid being vulnerable to sanctions in the future. To this end, the Chinese government has reportedly set up an entire network of companies with the sole aim of enabling independent chip production. Huawei is said to have already received the equivalent of close to US$30 billion in subsidies from the government for the construction of a modern chip factory.

Huawei is the logical choice for these subsidies because the company already has experience in developing its own chips and mass production, and is large enough to implement such an initiative. Ironically, US sanctions are said to have been the deciding factor for this close cooperation between Huawei and the Chinese government. In a statement, Huawei has denied the Bloomberg report and denied receiving subsidies to build a factory.

Huawei has already launched a smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, that was largely developed and manufactured in China: the display comes from BOE, the cameras from Ofilm, the battery from Sunwoda, the 7 nm Kirin 9000S ARM SoC from SMIC and the operating system from Huawei. Only the RAM was purchased from SK Hynix in South Korea.