Intel has survived an effort to halt hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of chip sales to Huawei, two people familiar with the matter said, giving one of the world’s largest chipmakers more time to sell to the heavily sanctioned Chinese telecoms company.
U.S. President Joe Biden has long been under pressure to revoke a license, issued by the Trump administration, that allows Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab to ship advanced central processors to Huawei for use in laptops.
The push came from Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab, which argued it was unfair that it did not receive a license to sell similar chips to Huawei and from China hawks, who are seeking to stop all sales to the Chinese firm.
Intel’s ability to hang on to a license to sell chips while a rival could not obtain similar permission demonstrates the uneven and uncertain terrain companies face as the U.S. seeks to limit Beijing’s access to sophisticated American technology, especially to a heavily sanctioned company like Huawei.
It has also allowed Huawei to keep a small but growing share of the global laptop market, while AMD was deprived of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of sales to the Chinese sanctioned firm, data showed.
“The majority of the CPUs used in Huawei’s laptops is still from Intel, so any further limitation on it would make Huawei’s laptop offering quite challenging,” said Emma Xu, an analyst with technology market research firm Canalys.
Intel, Huawei, the Commerce Department and the White House declined to comment. AMD did not respond to a request for comment. Describing the curbs on Huawei as economic bullying,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington urged the United States to “stop overstretching the concept of national security” to “suppress Chinese companies.”
Huawei, a symbol of the years-long technology war between Washington and Beijing, was added to the trade restriction list by the Trump administration in 2019 over alleged sanctions violations. Huawei has previously denied wrongdoing.
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