If you can’t, but it’s very profitable, then you can.
Reuters reported today that Intel managed to retain an export license allowing it to supply its components to the needs of Chinese Huawei Technologies, which has been under US sanctions since 2019. This is all the more interesting if you consider that AMD lost such an export license, although for a number of components supplied for Huawei’s needs, its product range literally overlapped with Intel’s. At the very least, Intel will be able to supply mobile processors for laptops to Huawei for some time to come.
Image source: Intel
The laptops produced by Huawei mostly rely on Intel processors, so any ban in this area would actually condemn the core business of the Chinese giant. Intel received the appropriate export license from the US Department of Commerce at the end of 2020, after the resignation of President Donald Trump, who was the main ideologist of restricting Huawei's access to goods and technologies of American origin. AMD has been trying to obtain a similar license since the beginning of 2021 under President Biden, but has not succeeded.
As a result, the share of Huawei laptops equipped with AMD processors dropped from 47.1% to 9.3% over the previous three years, according to American analysts. At the same time, the share of Huawei laptops with Intel processors increased from 52.9 to 90.7%. Thus, AMD's losses in the form of lost revenue by the beginning of last year reached $512 million, according to experts. American officials wanted to revoke Intel's export license last year, but never followed through. Intel's current license will expire this year, and it is not certain that it will be renewed. Last year, Huawei managed to become the third largest laptop supplier in China with a share of 9.7%, displacing the American company Dell Technologies from this position.