(Bloomberg) – Huawei’s latest product product is equipped with a chip made of lagged technology, indicating that United States sanctions still prevent China from developing state -of -the -art semiconductors.
The Matebook Fold processor is produced with the 7 nanome technology of the national partner semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), according to Canadian consultancy Techinsights. This is the same technology used in Mate 60 Pro, which surprised US officials two years ago. The industry leader, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC, Ticker), is expected to start the mass production of 2 nanomers, three generations ahead of the 7 nanomers chips.
The new Huawei tablet folding and hybrid notebook, released in May, runs the Harmony Own operating system. Shenzhen’s company has gradually increased the use of national technologies and components on its devices, aligning with Beijing’s policy of reducing West dependence while trying to compete with giants such as Apple and Microsoft.
Continues after advertising
China still faces significant challenges to ensure next -generation chip manufacturing expertise after a US -led multinational campaign that cut its access to Western advanced equipment and technologies. ASML Holding NV is prohibited from selling its extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, essential for the production of sophisticated artificial intelligence chips to Chinese companies.
“This probably means that SMIC has not yet reached a technological node equivalent to 5 nanometers that can be produced on scale,” Techinsights said in a statement. “This news indicates that US -imposed technological controls continue to impact SMIC’s ability to reach current leaders on more advanced nodes for used chips on mobile devices, PCs and cloud/AI applications.”
Huawei surprised American politicians by launching its 7 nanome Chinese chip by 2023, but seems to have done little progress since then on the improvement of its capacities in semiconductors. The Chinese company is expected to produce only 200,000 units of its ASI for AI chips in 2025 due to export controls, said Jeffrey Kessler, Under -Secretary of Trade in the US, at a hearing in Congress earlier this month.
Continues after advertising
The US see China as the main rival in the field of Artificial Intelligence, especially after the emergence of DeepSeek in the global scenario in early 2025. In addition to the efforts to prevent China from acquiring advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, Washington blocks Chinese companies from High Performance AI chips from Nvidia () for training national security concerns. Beijing now bets on Huawei and SMIC to advance the manufacture of chips.
Ren Zhengfei, founder of Huawei, recently minimized the impact of US technological restrictions on China. In an interview with the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, he said there is no reason to worry, as national companies can adopt techniques such as stacking chips to achieve results similar to those of the most advanced semiconductors.
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
