The saga of Huawei has been going on for quite a while now, but what we’re learning right now is that U.S. efforts at blacklisting the company due to concerns about national security are having a tangible impact on the Chinese telecom company. The U.S. white house suggests Huawei might “spy for China;” Huawei says it doesn’t.
Today, Reuters reports that Huawei will no longer market its Kirin chipsets in which the company had implemented various kinds of 5G innovation.
Huawei calls Kirin its ‘flagship’ 5G chipset product, but new reports show the company will cease production as of September 15.
Specifically, makers cite dependence on U.S. software for chip design and process support from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, which apparently uses equipment from U.S. companies.
The news of the cessation of Kirin production comes as the U.S. continues to seek extradition of Huawei’s Meng Wenzhou for bank fraud.
What makes the Kirin chipset so great? Besides its 5G features, such as signal anti-jamming capability, 5G occupation ratio and dual SIM experience build, some Kirin chipset models also represent something called “da Vinci architecture.”
One part of what this means is that some of these chips have a neural net API built in, to allow them to function well in AI implementations.
To experts and aficionados to whom all of this sounds like exciting technology, Huawei’s shuttering of the program is bad news. It also goes to show how tightly locked together the American and Chinese economies are, which makes investors so nervous about trade protectionism and trade conflict between the two superpowers. It’s worth noting that at the very same time, the proposed TikTok deal is also roiling international trade relations.
What will come out of all of this antagonism and trade conflict, as well as finger-pointing over coronavirus pandemic? Really, it’s anybody’s guess.