Huawei’s latest laptop has fallen short of expectations for a semiconductor breakthrough, reflecting how U.S. sanctions are hindering the manufacturing ambitions of China’s communist regime, according to a Canadian-based consultancy, TechInsights.
The Matebook Fold is powered by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), the largest foundry in mainland China. It utilizes the 7nm chipset, the same technology used in Huawei’s 60 Pro smartphone, which startled Washington in 2023. This falls short of industry-wide speculation that, after 2 years, the laptop would feature SMIC’s next-generation 5nm-class chip, according to a report by TechInsights on June 23.
Foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung are forecast to roll out 2nm chips within the next two years.
A product like “this likely means that SMIC has not yet achieved a 5nm-equivalent node that can be produced at scale,” the report stated. The absence of progress since August 2023 has led TechInsights to believe that any progress made is minimal.
Huawei, a Shenzhen-headquartered telecom giant with close ties to the Chinese military, was placed on the U.S. trade blacklist in 2019, a move that barred the company from doing business with American companies. In May 2020, Huawei was blocked from purchasing semiconductors from global manufacturers made with U.S. technology. Several months later, TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, announced that it would halt shipments to the Chinese company in response to U.S. sanctions.
Huawei launched the MateBook Fold in May as part of its effort towards greater autonomy in tech. The laptop runs on its own Harmony OS-powered operating system, moving towards a “future with less reliance on non-domestic sources, more control, and focusing on China-first innovation,” TechInsights said.
As a result of the sanctions, Huawei will be able to produce no more than 200,000 of its Ascend AI chips in 2025, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffery Kessler told a Congressional hearing earlier this month. He urged the United States to take caution in spite of the numbers: “It’s critical for us not to have a false sense of security, to understand that China is catching up quickly.”
Despite the technological bottlenecks, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei recently told People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official paper, that there is no need to worry. He claimed that alternative methods, such as cluster computing, could bridge the sanctions gap with similar results to those in the West.
TechInsight stated that Huawei’s chip is currently several generations behind foundries such as Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD. Within the next one to two years, the introduction of 2nm chips by companies like TSMC and Intel could leave China lagging at least three generations behind.
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