Huawei has replaced thousands of U.S.-banned parts in its products, founder says

By Stephen Nellis and Krystal Hu

(Reuters) – Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s founder said that the company has replaced more than 13,000 parts in its products that were hit by U.S. trade sanctions, according to a transcript of a speech posted on Friday by a Chinese university.

According to the transcript posted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei said Huawei had over the past three years replaced the 13,000 components with domestic Chinese substitutes and had redesigned 4,000 circuit boards for it products. He said production of circuit boards had “stabilized.”

The remarks, which Reuters could not independently verify, provided a window into Huawei’s efforts to bounce back from U.S. trade restrictions. Since 2019, Huawei, a major supplier of equipment used in 5G telecommunications networks, has been the target of successive rounds of U.S. export controls.

Those controls cut off both Huawei’s supply of chips from U.S. companies and its access to U.S. technology tools to design its own chips and have them manufactured by partners. The Biden administration last year also banned the sale of new Huawei equipment in the U.S.

Ren made the remarks in a talk to Chinese technology experts on Feb. 24, the university said. The university posted the transcript on its website on Friday. A U.S.-based Huawei representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Ren said Huawei invested $23.8 billion in R&D in 2022, and “as our profitability improves, we’ll continue to increase R&D spending.” 

The reports come after analysts said that Huawei showed off 5G telecommunications equipment at an industry conference in Barcelona in which all of the chips on its circuit boards had their origins obscured.