Huawei could get access to Qualcomm's 5G chips

According to a new rumor coming from China, Huawei could soon get access to Qualcomm’s 5G chips. The US has allegedly loosened its export rules, and Qualcomm may be allowed to provide Huawei with 5G SoCs.

Huawei could get access to Qualcomm’s 5G SoCs soon, new rumor claims

Now, do note that this is just a rumor at this point. Huawei did not report anything on this, nor did the US. Until that changes, Huawei is still in trouble in terms of SoCs for its smartphones, kind of.

It’s not exactly a secret that Huawei has been prevented from accessing 5G processors for years now, and the same goes for installing Google services on its phones. Those are all restrictions imposed by the US.

Back in 2019, Huawei was placed on the Entity List by the US, preventing the company from accessing the US supply chain. In 2020, the US expanded its export rules, so chip foundries using American tech to manufacture processors were not allowed to provide products to Huawei.

Huawei used the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in its phones, but limited to 4G

Huawei has been prevented from using 5G processors due to that, but it has still been using Qualcomm chips. For example, the Huawei Mate 50 Pro and Huawei P60 series both use the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.

That was Qualcomm’s flagship SoC for last year, and it does support 5G connectivity. In Huawei smartphones, however, that feature has been removed. 4G is still available, however.

Needless to say, the US restrictions did impact Huawei quite a bit. The company was on its way to become the world’s number 1 smartphone OEM before all that happened. Now it can’t use 5G SoC, nor install Google services on its devices.

If this rumor pans out, one of Huawei’s biggest problems will be resolved. It remains to be seen if there’s any truth to it.