Huawei Technologies Co, the Chinese technology giant barred from doing business with U.S. suppliers, is finding a way around the strict limits imposed by the Trump administration.
The U.S. Commerce Department, citing national security concerns, has largely forbidden American companies from selling Huawei the computer chips it needs to make a piece of equipment integral to newly introduced high-speed wireless networks.
In response, China’s largest technology company has ramped up its own capabilities to manufacture the gear, which is known as a base station.
In a sign that the self-reliance is working, Huawei in the fourth quarter sold more than 50,000 of these next-generation base stations that were free of U.S. technology, according to Tim Danks, the U.S.-based Huawei executive responsible for partner relations. That’s only about 8% of the total base stations that Huawei’s sold as of February, but the company is quickly ramping up at its secretive HiSilicon division to make more of these American component-free devices, Danks said.
Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei initially estimated that Huawei’s May 2019 blacklisting by the U.S. could wipe $30bn off annual revenues and threaten his company’s very survival, though he has tempered that outlook more recently. Huawei has mobilised a massive effort to develop in-house alternatives to American software and circuitry, while U.S. suppliers like Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp have found ways to continue supplying Huawei vital components it needed to make its products.
