Thousands of Huawei Products Discontinue US Banned Parts

The founder of Huawei Technologies said the Chinese technology company had replaced more than 13,000 parts in its products subject to trade sanctions by the United States (US).

Reuters news agency released a statement from the founder of Huawei from a speech transcript uploaded by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, Friday (17/3). However, Reuters was unable to independently verify the transcript of Ren’s statement.

According to the transcript, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said over the past three years he had replaced 13,000 components with parts made in China. In addition, Huawei has also redesigned 4,000 circuit boards for its products.

According to Ren, circuit board production has stabilized.

The statement opens up opportunities for Huawei’s efforts to recover from US trade restrictions. Since 2019, Huawei has been the target of US trade control policies. The company is a major supplier of devices used in 5G communications networks.

That control from the US has cut the supply of chips from US companies to Huawei. The company also lost access to US technology equipment to design its own chips which were then produced by Huawei partners.

Ren made the remarks during a talk show with Chinese technology experts on February 24, according to the university, which later uploaded the transcript to its website Friday. Huawei’s US representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday (17/3).

Ren said Huawei is investing $23.8 billion or around Rp.36.6 trillion for research and development (Research & Development/R&D) in 2022.

“As profitability improves, we will continue to increase spending on R&D),” said Ren. [ft/ah]