Top US tech companies begin to cut off vital Huawei supplies after company is blacklisted by White House
- Chip makers including Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom are said to have told their employees they will not supply Huawei until further notice
- Also, the US has pressured both allies and foes to avoid using Huawei for 5G networks that will form the backbone of the modern economy
Top US corporations from chip makers to Google have frozen the supply of critical software and components to Huawei Technologies, complying with a Trump administration crackdown that threatens to choke off China’s largest technology company.
Chip makers including Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom have told their employees they will not supply Huawei till further notice, according to people familiar with their actions. And Alphabet’s Google cut off the supply of hardware and some software services to the Chinese giant, another person familiar said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters.
The moves, which had been anticipated, hamstring the world’s largest provider of networking gear and No. 2 smartphone vendor. The Trump administration on Friday blacklisted Huawei – which it accuses of aiding Beijing in espionage – and threatened to cut it off from the US software and semiconductors it needs to make its products.
Blocking the sale to Huawei of critical components could also disrupt the businesses of American chip giants like Micron Technology and retard the roll-out of critical 5G wireless networks worldwide – including in China. That in turn could hurt US companies that are increasingly reliant on the world’s second largest economy for growth.
If fully implemented, the Trump administration action could have ripple effects across the global semiconductor industry. Intel is the main supplier of server chips to the Chinese company, Qualcomm provides it with processors and modems for many of its smartphones, Xilinx sells programmable chips used in networking and Broadcom is a supplier of switching chips, another key component in some types of networking machinery.