Latest news with #HuaweiTechnologies
Nikkei Asia
2 days ago
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
Huawei and ZTE take AI to Belt and Road, shrugging off US sanctions
SHANGHAI -- Top Chinese telecom equipment suppliers Huawei Technologies and ZTE are stepping up marketing of their AI services in Belt and Road countries as the U.S. tightens sanctions targeting Chinese technology companies. Huawei Deputy Chairman Eric Xu, now serving as rotating chairman, delivered a pitch Wednesday in a keynote address at the MWC Shanghai industry exposition.
Mint
3 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Cold War II alert: Rare earths could tilt the global balance of power
Gift this article In retrospect, the symbolism of the moment was foreboding. On 15 May 2019, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning US firms from doing business with Chinese telecommunications companies, including Huawei Technologies. Five days after that first broadside in a brewing trade-and-technology war, China's President Xi Jinping was photographed touring a factory producing rare-earth magnets. In retrospect, the symbolism of the moment was foreboding. On 15 May 2019, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning US firms from doing business with Chinese telecommunications companies, including Huawei Technologies. Five days after that first broadside in a brewing trade-and-technology war, China's President Xi Jinping was photographed touring a factory producing rare-earth magnets. Such devices, his visit seemed to imply, could be a geopolitical weapon for China quite as potent as advanced semiconductors are for the US. Six years later, those battle lines are hardening. In the first major US-China trade dispute of Trump's second term, Beijing was able to use its control of rare earths to force Washington to a deal struck in London recently. The magnets produced from them are essential for the lightweight powerful motors driving everything from automated car seats to guided missiles. After the US imposed its first round of tariffs in April, China started limiting export permits, causing US manufacturers to warn of imminent shutdowns. Trump announced in a social media post last Wednesday that the trade deal had been finalized. But it had a worrying note of desperation. America has been caught napping. Beijing's response to being frozen out of the microprocessor ecosystem was an all-out drive to bridge the technological gap. State-owned chip foundry SMIC has deployed $33.5 billion on capital expenditure and $4 billion on research and development (R&D) since the middle of 2019. Huawei spends $25 billion on R&D every year. Just 12 months ago, the government created a separate $47.5 billion semiconductor investment fund. The US chip fortress still looks pretty impregnable, barring an unexpected DeepSeek moment. Although Huawei is reported to be developing a 3-nanometer chip to match the most advanced non-Chinese processors as soon as next year, the founder said its best designs still 'lag behind the US by a generation." Also Read: China risks overplaying its hand by curbing rare earth exports A lesson of asymmetric warfare is to exploit your enemy's weaknesses, rather than attempt to match their strengths. That's where rare earths come in. A technological conflict is simply a disguised version of a real flesh-and-blood battle. As Chris Miller's 2022 book Chip War explains, the US advantage in semiconductors was a crucial factor in winning the Cold War. By making processing power incredibly lightweight and error-free, it enabled America to build a far more fearsome military machine. Cruise missiles guided by tiny onboard computers could destroy targets with pinpoint accuracy, rendering them more deadly than Soviet missiles that perennially veered off course. Rare-earth magnets promise to replicate that processing-power revolution in mechanical power—making motors smaller, stronger, cheaper and more efficient. It's an innovative leap that allows us to move objects in undreamt-of ways. As with cruise missiles in the 1970s, this innovation promises to change the way future wars will be fought. Blinded by culture wars over the energy transition, America is doing far too little to close this technological gap. Its military needs for rare-earth magnets, as we've written, have been pretty much met at minimal cost. Compared to the hundreds of billions that China is pouring into chips, the Pentagon has built a rare-earth supply chain since the start of 2020 with $439 million in grants and loans. Worse is the way lithium-ion batteries are falling victim to politics. The looming repeal of Biden era clean-energy subsidies and the resultant collapse of the electric-vehicle supply chain may reduce the output capacity of US battery manufacturers in 2030 by about 75%. That would halt almost every plant not already under construction and ensure the country can only produce enough cells to power about a fifth of annual car sales. America will be left more dependent on China, both for auto batteries and the host of more crucial niche applications for lithium-ion technology. In the golden age of semiconductors, the US instinctively knew that its strength lay in its determination to remain at the bleeding edge of innovation. When the might of the state forces technology to submit to ideology, though, the consequences can be disastrous. That's the road the US is on, however, in letting China take the lead in rare earths, solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and the other clean electrical technologies of the future. Should American troops find themselves on some future battlefield without the minerals and batteries needed to match swarms of drones deployed against them, they'll rue the day Washington turned its back on the future. ©Bloomberg The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Topics You May Be Interested In
Economic Times
13-06-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
US says China's Huawei can't make more than 200,000 AI chips in 2025
China's Huawei Technologies is capable of producing no more than 200,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips in 2025, a top US exports controls official told lawmakers on Thursday, warning that though the number is below the company's demand, China is quickly catching up to U.S. capabilities. Since 2019, a slew of U.S. export rules aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements have limited access by Huawei and other Chinese firms to high-end U.S. chips and the equipment needed to produce them. The issue has become a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations. Facing those restrictions, Huawei aims to ship its Ascend 910C AI chips to Chinese customers as an alternative to those made by the United States' Nvidia, the global leader. "Our assessment is that Huawei Ascend chip production capacity for 2025 will be at or below 200,000 and we project that most or all of that will be delivered to companies within China," Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, told a congressional hearing. Kessler said that the U.S. should not take comfort in the figure. "China is investing huge amounts to increase its AI chip production, as well as the capabilities of the chips that it produces. So, it's critical for us not to have a false sense of security, to understand that China is catching up quickly," he told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia subcommittee. White House AI Czar David Sacks said on Tuesday that China was only 3-6 months behind the US in AI. The White House later said he was referring to China's AI models, adding that Chinese AI chips are one to two years behind their U.S. counterparts. Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state media on Tuesday that the company's chips were a generation behind those of US competitors, but that it invests more than $25 billion annually to improve performance. Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but Washington's export controls on its most sophisticated chips have caused it to lose market share. The U.S. and China reached a tentative trade truce at talks in London this week after a previous agreement faltered over China's continued curbs on minerals exports. That prompted the Trump administration to apply additional export controls on shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made planes and other goods. Democratic Representative Greg Meeks expressed concern that the Trump administration had conflated U.S. exports controls with broader discussions on trade. "What I will say is export controls have been strong and I'm confident that they will remain strong," Kessler said. Kessler said he was not planning any immediate new restrictions on U.S. semiconductors sold to China, but that the Commerce Department will "remain active in this space." "It's a constantly evolving landscape, and we need to make sure that our controls remain effective," he said.
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
US says China's Huawei can't make more than 200,000 AI chips in 2025
Live Events China's Huawei Technologies is capable of producing no more than 200,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips in 2025, a top US exports controls official told lawmakers on Thursday, warning that though the number is below the company's demand, China is quickly catching up to U.S. 2019, a slew of U.S. export rules aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements have limited access by Huawei and other Chinese firms to high-end U.S. chips and the equipment needed to produce them. The issue has become a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations. Facing those restrictions, Huawei aims to ship its Ascend 910C AI chips to Chinese customers as an alternative to those made by the United States' Nvidia, the global leader."Our assessment is that Huawei Ascend chip production capacity for 2025 will be at or below 200,000 and we project that most or all of that will be delivered to companies within China," Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, told a congressional said that the U.S. should not take comfort in the figure."China is investing huge amounts to increase its AI chip production, as well as the capabilities of the chips that it produces. So, it's critical for us not to have a false sense of security, to understand that China is catching up quickly," he told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia House AI Czar David Sacks said on Tuesday that China was only 3-6 months behind the US in AI. The White House later said he was referring to China's AI models, adding that Chinese AI chips are one to two years behind their U.S. counterparts. Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state media on Tuesday that the company's chips were a generation behind those of US competitors, but that it invests more than $25 billion annually to improve AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but Washington's export controls on its most sophisticated chips have caused it to lose market U.S. and China reached a tentative trade truce at talks in London this week after a previous agreement faltered over China's continued curbs on minerals prompted the Trump administration to apply additional export controls on shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made planes and other Representative Greg Meeks expressed concern that the Trump administration had conflated U.S. exports controls with broader discussions on trade."What I will say is export controls have been strong and I'm confident that they will remain strong," Kessler said he was not planning any immediate new restrictions on U.S. semiconductors sold to China, but that the Commerce Department will "remain active in this space.""It's a constantly evolving landscape, and we need to make sure that our controls remain effective," he said.
South China Morning Post
12-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Tech war: Nvidia CEO says Huawei has everyone ‘covered' if US chip ban on China stays
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said his company's technology remained a generation ahead of those developed by China, but warned that Huawei Technologies was in a position to expand its semiconductor business should US chip curbs on China stay in place. Advertisement Ren, however, added that using methods like 'stacking and clustering [on Ascend-powered machines], the computing results are comparable' to the most advanced systems in the world. 'AI is a parallel problem, so if each one of the computers are not capable … just add more computers,' Huang said in response to a question about Ren's comments. 'What he's saying is that in China, [where] they have plenty of energy, they'll just use more chips.' 'He was saying that China's technology is good enough for China. If the United States doesn't want to participate in China, Huawei has got China covered,' Huang added. 'Huawei [also] has got everybody else covered.' Advertisement The 62-year-old Nvidia CEO's televised comments, made on the sidelines of the annual VivaTech conference in Paris, reflect his concerns about Huawei's growing AI chip capabilities, which he earlier raised during a closed-door meeting last month with the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.
