On July 2, 2024, the tech world made waves again. The emergence of Huawei's new generation of Kirin chips has not only sparked heated discussions in the industry, but also put the U.S. government in a dilemma. The latest progress in this chip wrestling will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the global technology landscape.
With the release of the Huawei Pura70 series of phones, the flagship model with the new Kirin 9010 processor immediately came into focus. The processor's performance is impressive, and it has shown strong performance in various benchmarks. Antutu's running score is as high as 9.7 million points, which is a significant improvement from the previous generation Kirin 9000. In the GeekBench 6.2 test, the single-core score reached 1442 points, and the multi-core score was as high as 4471 points, which is about 9% higher than the overall performance of the previous generation.
However, what is really striking is not the numbers themselves, but the story behind Huawei's huge leap in just six months. You know, since 2020, the U.S. government has imposed a series of severe technology blockades on Huawei, aiming to cut off its access to advanced chip manufacturing technology. In this high-pressure situation, Huawei has been able to make breakthroughs in chip design and architecture optimization, which is really admirable.
What's even more shocking is that, according to the analysis of industry experts, the process technology of the Kirin 9010 processor is the same as that of the previous generation, but it can achieve such a significant improvement in performance. This means that Huawei has reached a new level in chip design and architecture optimization. Some experts even believe that the comprehensive performance of the Kirin 9010 has surpassed the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and reached a level comparable to the Snapdragon 8+ series, while the latter uses a more advanced 4nm process.
This breakthrough is not only a victory for Huawei alone, but also a milestone for the entire Chinese integrated circuit industry. It proves that in an extremely difficult environment, Chinese companies can still break through the technological blockade through independent innovation and occupy a place in the global high-tech competition.
In the face of Huawei's major breakthrough, the U.S. government's response has been unusually muted. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently publicly stated that the chips used in Huawei's new mobile phones are not very advanced, so they have not attracted special attention. What are the considerations behind this statement?
Some analysts believe that this move by the US Government is actually carrying out a strategic "cold treatment." On the one hand, acknowledging Huawei's technological progress will shake the dominant position of the United States in the semiconductor field and is not conducive to maintaining its technological hegemony. On the other hand, excessive attention may trigger more countries and companies to question and backlash against the U.S. technology blockade policy.
However, this attitude of the US government also exposes its dilemma in dealing with China's technological rise. In the past few years, the U.S. government has tried to curb the development of China's semiconductor industry through various means, including restricting the export of advanced process technology, and even cooperating with allies such as Japan and the Netherlands to implement export controls. But Huawei's latest breakthrough shows that these measures have not completely stopped the technological progress of Chinese companies.
In fact, the U.S. government has long regarded the 14nm process as a red line that cannot be crossed, trying to limit China's chip manufacturing capacity to this level. However, the emergence of Huawei's Kirin 9010 has undoubtedly broken this boundary, proving that Chinese companies have the ability to break through the technological blockade. This not only shakes the technological superiority of the United States, but also challenges its right to speak in the global technology field.
In this case, the U.S. government has chosen to show a "don't care" attitude, most likely because they have realized that a technological blockade alone can no longer effectively contain the development of China's semiconductor industry. The limits of this strategy are becoming increasingly apparent, forcing the United States to reconsider its technology policy toward China.
At the same time, Huawei's breakthrough has also injected new confidence and impetus into the entire Chinese semiconductor industry. It proves that even in the most harsh external environment, Chinese enterprises can still occupy a place in the global high-tech competition through continuous independent innovation and technology accumulation. This will undoubtedly encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in the research and development of core technologies and promote the upgrading and development of the entire industrial chain.
However, we must also be soberly aware that Huawei's success does not mean that China's semiconductor industry has completely gotten rid of external dependence. China still faces enormous challenges in many key areas, especially in the manufacture of ultra-high-end equipment such as EUV lithography machines. In the future, how to promote the independence and controllability of the industrial chain while maintaining technological innovation will be an important issue facing China's semiconductor industry.
Overall, the breakthrough of Huawei's Kirin 9010 processor is not only a victory of technological innovation, but also a strong proof of China's independent innovation ability in science and technology. It shows that under extreme pressure, Chinese companies can still break through the technological blockade and occupy a place in the global high-tech competition through their own efforts. Although the U.S. government has shown a "don't care" attitude, the strategic considerations and policy dilemmas behind this response reflect the profound changes that are taking place in the global technology landscape.
In the future, as Chinese enterprises achieve technological breakthroughs in more fields, the global technology competition pattern will be further reshaped. In this process, how to promote international cooperation while maintaining technological innovation and build an open, inclusive, mutually beneficial and win-win global science and technology ecosystem will be an important topic that all participants need to think about together.