Huawei declares independence

BarcelonaChinese firm Huawei, the world leader in 5G telecommunications equipment, will launch next week the first laptops with its own operating system, HarmonyOS 5, which do not incorporate any type of technology from the US, neither software nor hardware. Huawei's measure of self-sufficiency in computers adds to those it already maintains in chips of smartphone, connected cars, smart devices and AI servers.

At the end of last year Huawei already launched a smartphone foldable, the Mate X6, with completely its own technology, and last April it presented a 5G model, the Pura 70, which has nothing to envy of its competitors with US software and advanced chips manufactured mainly in Taiwan. Now it is preparing to tackle the computer market, where it was already present, but now exclusively with homegrown components.

The first Donald Trump administration banned US companies from supplying Huawei with hardware and software for its devices in 2019. smartphones, such as Google apps, and banned companies like Taiwan's TSMC from manufacturing Kirin processors for its phones, despite being designed by Huawei's Silicon division. US authorities claimed that these components could be used for espionage, a claim the Chinese company has always denied and has never been proven.

Huawei, already anticipating US hostility, began developing its own Harmony OS operating system in 2015. Over the years, it has been improving it until it presented the first smartphones of the Mate series with this operating system, and a year later the first laptop prototypes. Currently, according to Huawei, there are about 300 third-party developers for Harmony applications and another 2,000 want to become developers. The current version of the operating system for smartphones It's HarmonyOS Next, with over 15,000 apps. It's a tiny number compared to those available for Android, but it's constantly growing.

Do without Windows

In 2010, Chinese President Xi Jinping encouraged the country's companies to develop their own semiconductor manufacturing technology and alternatives to running Windows on computers. SMIC, the Chinese manufacturer of highly advanced memory and chips

In fact, it is assumed that the Ascend AI chips, which rival Nvidia's and have alarmed the US government, have been jointly designed and manufactured by SMIC and Huawei in one of the complexes that integrates all stages of semiconductor production.

Coinciding with Computex in Taipei, the world's main computer fair, Huawei recently presented two laptops: the MateBook Fold Ultimate and another MateBook Pro with the conventional 8 key. They run HarmonyOS 5 and include a Kingsoft Office emulator and photo editing software, among other applications.

These laptops are sold only in mainland China and their design is spectacular, as is their price, which is proportional. The processor is the Kirin X90 PC, designed by HiSilicon and manufactured by SMIC. The technology is seven nanometers, although Chinese state television initially claimed it was five nanometers. Although it is also expensive to manufacture, it is not the most advanced, but it is Made in China. It should be noted that these laptops will also be sold in the European market, but with Windows or Google operating systems and with Intel or AMD processors.

Currently, according to the consultancy firm Canalys, Huawei has an 11% share of the Chinese PC market, second only to Lenovo (35%). The country's government has mandated that all companies, at least public ones, stop using Windows computers. If Huawei manages to make Harmony OS as competitive against alternatives as it has demonstrated in other fields, its adoption by other Chinese computer manufacturers and smartphones could be faster than you think.

Huawei's advances in telecommunications equipment, smartphones, connected cars, smart devices, AI servers, and now laptops, among others, despite the obstacles placed in their way by the US, have surprised everyone, starting with the Trump administration, which no longer knows how to stop them. It must be taken into account that the Chinese computer market represents at least a third of the global market, not counting its influential countries, and that more than half of all computers sold in the world are manufactured and assembled in China.

PCs evolve

Aside from the Chinese computing market, computers destined for the rest of the world are also changing. Some of these were seen at Computex, although not as widely as expected. Nvidia's "supercomputer," announced in January at CES, won't be released before the end of the year due to design issues. And Microsoft's AIPCs with new Qualcomm X Elite processors, which were supposed to improve the performance of current models, won't be unveiled until the end of September. However, Microsoft, in an attempt to boost the sluggish market, announced a price cut for its Surface laptops.

In Intel's case, we'll have to wait until practically next year to see the commercial release of the new servers with the new advanced processor technology that has been announced for some time. The most notable thing seen at Computex were the new AI server processors that AMD will put on sale in the coming weeks. MediaTek, the Taiwanese brand that competes with Qualcomm, has also decided to expand the applications of its advanced chips, while Xiaomi has confirmed that it will make its own processor for smartphones and connected devices.

All of this suggests that next year there will be substantial changes in the computer market, both laptops and desktops and servers. Changes linked, of course, to AI, a topic that is constantly talked about but that has only just begun. Everything will depend on the winds blowing from Washington and especially from the Oval Office, because the 90-day truce decreed by Donald Trump, of which almost a third has already passed, is just that: just a truce that, on top of that, changes its approach day by day.