In Shenzhen, Huawei has offered the world a portrait of a technology giant that chose reinvention over retreat — spending nearly two decades and trillions of yuan building the chips, software, and ecosystems it could no longer obtain from abroad. The company's new LogicFolding architecture and expanding HarmonyOS platform represent not merely engineering milestones, but a deliberate philosophical wager: that self-sufficiency, however costly, is more durable than dependency. Whether this hard-won capability can translate into recovered global standing remains the central question of Huawei's ne
Huawei Touts Homegrown Tech Breakthroughs as It Rebuilds Global Smartphone Presence
Huawei has basically gotten rid of dependence on US technologies
Mark
So Huawei spent 1.8 trillion yuan on R&D over nearly two decades. That's a real commitment. But the company's global smartphone sales have collapsed to just a few million units a year. How do you square that circle?
Mimi
The investment wasn't just about smartphones. It was about building the entire stack—chips, operating system, software tools—from the ground up. When sanctions hit, Huawei couldn't rely on Android or Intel anymore. So they had to become self-sufficient. The R&D spending was the price of survival, not just growth.
Luke
But here's what I want to know: how much of that 1.8 trillion actually went into consumer products versus infrastructure and telecom equipment? The source doesn't break it down. And when Yu says Huawei is "trying to return to the overseas market step by step," that's vague. What does step by step mean? Wearables and routers aren't smartphones.
Mark
Fair point. Let me ask differently: this LogicFolding technology—is it actually competitive with what Samsung or TSMC can produce, or is it a workaround for not having access to the latest manufacturing nodes?
Mimi
It's a workaround that works. By stacking logic layers vertically and shortening signal paths, Huawei can squeeze more performance out of older process nodes. The Kirin 9050 Pro delivers 31 percent better performance than the previous generation. That's real. But it's not the same as having access to 3-nanometer or 5-nanometer manufacturing.
Luke
Exactly. And Yu admitted that China's semiconductor capacity still can't meet demand. So even if the chip design is solid, Huawei can't scale production fast enough to recapture global market share. The company is constrained by physics and geopolitics, not just engineering.
Mark
What about HarmonyOS? Ninety million devices, 450,000 apps, 11 million developers. That sounds like real traction.
Mimi
It is. But almost all of those devices are in China. When Yu talks about "gradually bringing HarmonyOS to the global market," that's the real test. Developers won't build for an OS unless there's a user base, and users won't adopt an OS unless there are apps. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.
Luke
And we don't know how many of those 450,000 apps are actually useful or actively maintained. That number can be inflated by counting every minor utility. The developer count is also global registered developers, not active ones building for HarmonyOS outside China.
Mark
So the story is: Huawei has solved the technology problem but not the market problem.
Mimi
Precisely. They've proven they can innovate and build alternatives to US technology. But rebuilding a global presence takes time, trust, and a reason for consumers to switch. Right now, they're strong in wearables and routers. Smartphones are the real prize, and that's where they're still struggling.
Der Puls
- Years of US sanctions stripped Huawei of access to leading chip manufacturers and software platforms, forcing a fundamental reinvention of its entire consumer business from the ground up.
- The new Kirin 9050 Pro chip — powered by a proprietary vertical-stacking technique called LogicFolding — delivers a 31% performance leap and runs a 30-billion-parameter AI model directly on the device, signaling that innovation has outpaced the constraints imposed on it.
- HarmonyOS now anchors 90 million devices and 450,000 apps, with Huawei positioning it as a credible third operating system — but international expansion remains cautious, as the company's global smartphone sales have collapsed from market-leading volumes to just several million units annually.
- A critical bottleneck looms: China's domestic semiconductor industry cannot yet produce enough advanced chips to simultaneously supply Huawei's smartphone division and its fast-growing AI infrastructure business, keeping ambitions ahead of capacity.
- Huawei's strongest global footholds now lie in wearables, wireless earbuds, tablets, and rural connectivity routers — categories where sanctions have bitten less deeply and competition has been more forgiving.
- The company frames its trajectory as liberation rather than loss, but the real test is whether technological self-sufficiency can be converted into meaningful market recovery in the global arenas it once dominated.
In Shenzhen, Huawei has offered the world a portrait of a technology giant that chose reinvention over retreat — spending nearly two decades and trillions of yuan building the chips, software, and ecosystems it could no longer obtain from abroad. The company's new LogicFolding architecture and expanding HarmonyOS platform represent not merely engineering milestones, but a deliberate philosophical wager: that self-sufficiency, however costly, is more durable than dependency. Whether this hard-won capability can translate into recovered global standing remains the central question of Huawei's next chapter.
On October 3rd in Shenzhen, Huawei gathered international journalists to present what its executives described as a story of technological rebirth. Richard Yu, who has led the company's consumer division since the early 1990s, outlined a strategy built around five product categories — travel, office, home, fitness, and entertainment — all unified under HarmonyOS, the operating system Huawei began developing in 2019 after US sanctions severed its access to Android and critical chip suppliers.
The financial scale of this pivot is striking. From 2007 to 2025, Huawei invested more than 1.8 trillion yuan in research and development, with R&D spending climbing from roughly 10 percent of annual revenue to over 20 percent in recent years. That sustained commitment produced an entirely in-house chip portfolio — Kirin processors, Balong modems, image and security chips, and AI accelerators built on Huawei's Da Vinci architecture. The flagship Mate 90 series now runs the Kirin 9050 Pro, which achieves 31 percent greater performance than its predecessor and can execute a 30-billion-parameter AI model on-device.
The engineering breakthrough enabling this is LogicFolding, a technique unveiled earlier this year that vertically stacks logic layers within a chip and uses high-density interconnects to shorten signal paths and reduce latency. Huawei calls the underlying principle the Tau Scaling Law. Yu confirmed the technology will appear in future devices — though he was candid that the limiting factor is not invention but production: China's semiconductor industry cannot yet manufacture enough advanced chips to meet combined demand from Huawei's smartphone and AI infrastructure divisions simultaneously.
HarmonyOS has matured into a genuine platform. More than 90 million devices run its latest versions, with 450,000 apps, 11 million registered developers, and over 23,000 innovation partners. Huawei intends to push the ecosystem into international markets, though the company's global smartphone presence has diminished sharply — from once holding the world's largest market share to selling only several million units outside China each year.
In categories less exposed to sanctions, Huawei has fared better. It leads globally in wearables and holds top positions in wireless earbuds across many countries. Its HarmonyOS-powered tablets are performing strongly, and its CPE mobile routers — designed to bring connectivity to rural and remote areas — have gained traction in multiple regions. Yu acknowledged that rising memory prices have weighed on smartphone volumes, but said current chip supply is sufficient for near-term shipment targets.
The story Huawei is telling is one of earned independence — a company that, when cut off from the global technology supply chain, built its own. Yu framed this not as isolation but as freedom from dependency, while noting that Huawei still values partnerships across the US, Europe, and Asia. The deeper question is whether capability alone can rebuild the global market presence that years of disruption have surrendered to rivals.
Huawei convened international journalists in Shenzhen on October 3rd to detail how the company has rebuilt its consumer business around homegrown technology after years of US sanctions cut it off from critical semiconductor suppliers and software platforms. Richard Yu, who has led Huawei's consumer division and joined the company in 1993, walked through a strategy centered on five interconnected product categories—smart travel, office tools, home automation, fitness, and entertainment—all running on HarmonyOS, the operating system Huawei developed starting in 2019 as an alternative to Android and iOS.
The financial commitment behind this pivot is substantial. Between 2007 and 2025, Huawei poured more than 1.8 trillion yuan into research and development, escalating from roughly 10 percent of annual revenue in earlier years to over 20 percent recently. That investment has produced a portfolio of chips designed entirely in-house: the Kirin processor, the Balong modem, image and security processors, and custom AI accelerators built on Huawei's Da Vinci architecture. The company's latest flagship, the Mate 90 series, runs the new Kirin 9050 Pro, which delivers 31 percent higher overall performance than its predecessor and can execute a 30-billion-parameter AI model directly on the device.
Central to Huawei's ability to compete despite limited access to cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing is a technology called LogicFolding, unveiled in May by He Tingbo, head of Huawei's Semiconductor Business Department. The approach vertically stacks logic layers within a chip and restructures the circuit layout through high-density interconnects between layers, shortening the paths signals must travel and reducing latency. This technique, grounded in what Huawei calls the Tau Scaling Law, has been integrated into the Kirin 9050 Pro and will appear in more phones going forward, Yu confirmed. The constraint is not innovation but production capacity: China's semiconductor industry cannot yet manufacture enough advanced chips to meet demand from both Huawei's smartphone division and its separate AI infrastructure business, which produces Ascend chips for data centers.
HarmonyOS has grown into a genuine ecosystem. More than 90 million devices—smartphones, tablets, and personal computers—now run HarmonyOS 6 or 7, with that figure expected to reach 100 million by year's end. The app store contains over 450,000 applications and services. Eleven million developers have registered globally, and Huawei counts more than 23,000 app innovation partners. Yu indicated the company intends to gradually expand HarmonyOS into international markets, though he acknowledged that Huawei's global smartphone presence has shrunk dramatically. The company now sells only several million units outside China annually, down from a time when it held the world's largest market share.
Yet Huawei has found footholds in other product categories where it competes globally. The company leads worldwide in wearables and has captured the top position in many countries for wireless earbuds. Its tablets, built on HarmonyOS after being cut off from Windows and Intel processors, are performing strongly. A less visible but consequential product is the CPE, a mobile router that extends connectivity to remote and rural areas where infrastructure is sparse. These devices have gained traction across multiple regions outside China.
When asked directly about chip supply constraints, Yu acknowledged that memory component prices have risen sharply over the past two years, dampening smartphone sales volumes. Production capacity remains tight, though he said it is currently sufficient for Huawei's market shipment targets. The company has developed a requirement plan that accounts for smartphone chip needs alongside demand from its AI infrastructure business. Yu expressed hope that China's semiconductor industry will expand capacity, enabling Huawei to manufacture more advanced products for both domestic and overseas consumers in the future.
The broader narrative Huawei is presenting is one of technological self-sufficiency achieved through sustained investment and domestic supply chain development. Since 2019, when US restrictions intensified, the company designed its own operating system, built basic software tools internally, and in 2023 resumed manufacturing smartphone chips domestically. Yu framed this not as a retreat but as liberation from dependence on US technology, though the company maintains it values collaboration with partners in the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. The question facing Huawei now is whether it can convert technological capability into meaningful market recovery outside China, where years of disruption have ceded ground to competitors.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
More of our phones will definitely use these LogicFolding chips in the future, though production capacity for advanced semiconductors in China still cannot meet rapidly growing demand.— Richard Yu, Executive Director and Chairman of Huawei's Consumer Business Group
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