Recently, the US Commerce Department suspended licenses that permitted tech companies, such as Qualcomm and Intel, to supply chips to Huawei, a Chinese telecom manufacturer. The suspension was reinstated immediately, a source informed the sources. The US Commerce Department issued a statement stating, “We have revoked certain licenses for exports to Huawei,” albeit it did not say which ones. Regretfully, the secret is now essentially public.

Following the release of Huawei’s first AI-enabled laptop, the MateBook X Pro, the US decided to cancel licenses. In terms of internal power, the laptop is powered by Intel’s top-of-the-line 14th Gen Core Ultra 9 CPU. The US government acted after Republican party members in the nation put pressure on the Biden administration to oppose Huawei and its purported artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions. “This action will bolster U.S. national security, protect American ingenuity, and diminish Communist China’s ability to advance its technology,” Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik said in a statement.

Since being included to the US trade restrictions list in 2019, it has been evident that Huawei hasn’t been able to get off easy. Most of the bans and penalties imposed on it are the result of the US government’s fear—which China has essentially written off as paranoia—that the firm is aiding its native China in strengthening and extending its military might.

To be clear, strictly speaking, Intel and Qualcomm would still be permitted to trade with Huawei; they would now only need to apply before shipping for a unique, even harder-to-obtain license, with the presumption of denial. Having said that, considering that Huawei recently unveiled a smartphone running on a processor made by SMIC, a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer, it might not be doing too badly right now.

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