Huawei has been largely driven out of the Western smartphone market by strict US sanctions, but the Chinese technology giant is not giving up. Several months ago, the company launched a 5G smartphone onto the market for the first time since the start of the sanctions, which is now causing a headache for the USA.
US government doesn’t grasp that sanctions will only further motivate their internal technology development, until it surpasses US tech. China isn’t North Korea. They have plenty of local talent and capabilities.
No country on its own is able to build high end chips. Currently you need at least Germany for technology, the Netherlands for the machines and Taiwan for manufacturing. In total over 300 companies just build parts for the machine.
No, China on its own won’t be able to get close or even surpass.
Nevertheless, quite impressive that they went from being 10 years behind (18 nm) just two years ago to 3 years behind (5 nm). We have to wait and see if the claim of Huawei having 5 nm is actually true, but if so, they are closing the gap really fast – which of course makes everyone wonder how. And the track record of China and trade secrets makes it not a far stretch to at least consider theft. But of course it could also just mean that they are really good at reverse engineering.