US restricts Intel and Qualcomm from selling chips to Huawei

Huawei has just launched its MateBook X Pro 2024 to global markets. It's a high-end laptop that comes equipped with the latest Intel Meteor Lake processors (Acer Swift Go 14 with Core Ultra 7 curr. $799.99 on Amazon). However, it seems that the Chinese company may not be able to release a successor with Intel Arrow Lake CPUs next year.

The US has now revoked Intel and Qualcomm's licenses to sell chips to the company. While this move means Huawei is about to see a setback, the company has been preparing for this for a good while now. For example, a recent report suggested that the company is preparing to produce HBM memory chips, which could accelerate its progress on HPC (high-performance computing) and AI development.

Also, in case you're not caught up, this isn't the first trade ban that the US has put against Huawei. It was placed on the banned list in May 2019, which barred many firms from selling technology to the company. For example, it was restricted from accessing 5G smartphone chips from Qualcomm.

However, in 2020, the US did allow Qualcomm to sell 4G chips to Huawei. Intel also had the license to sell some processors since 2020. But with this new restriction, it seems the US is now moving towards a "total ban."

Huawei eventually came up with its own 5G smartphone SoC, and it started selling 5G smartphones again. We might see something similar happening with its laptops after this new restriction that the US has put against the company.

Worth mentioning that Chinese fabless Loongson Technology is making progress in developing computer processors. Its latest 3A6000 CPU is reportedly on par with the Intel Core i3-10320. Given all the restrictions that have been put in place, we may possibly see Huawei working with Loongson for its upcoming laptops.