The US government’s ongoing trade war with China took a new turn recently as the Biden administration revoked chip export licenses to Huawei.
While the US Department of Commerce did not officially name the companies whose licenses were revoked, Qualcomm and Intel confirmed in their financial filing they are the ones that are affected by the ban.
The impact of this ban appears to vary between the two chipmakers. Intel’s filing says the US Department of Commerce has revoked “certain licenses” for exports of “consumer-related items” to its customers in China.
That likely means the ban is on chips used in laptops and Intel will still be able to supply chips to Huawei for other non-consumer applications such as data center servers.
Qualcomm’s situation seems more definitive as their filing details that the license revocation applies to “4G and certain other integrated circuit products,” including “Wi-Fi products,” for Huawei and its affiliates and subsidiaries. As a result, Qualcomm says it is expecting no further product revenue from Huawei beyond 2024.
The impact of this ban on Huawei remains to be seen. In response to the ban, the Chinese foreign ministry issued a statement saying “China resolutely opposes the United States overstretching the concept of national security and abusing export controls to suppress Chinese companies without justification”.
Huawei has been grappling with restrictions from the US since 2019 when it was placed on a trade ban list. It prevented American firms from selling their technology, including 5G chips, to the Chinese tech giant.
The ban became even stricter in 2020 when the US mandated foreign manufacturers using American chipmaking equipment to obtain a license before selling semiconductors to Huawei. These are the licenses that have now been revoked for Qualcomm and Intel.
