Huawei, once hobbled by US sanctions, passes 100 million Kirin chip milestone

Huawei Technologies has recently shipped over 100 million devices featuring its Kirin processors, marking a significant milestone in the smartphone market, according to the company's announcement on Tuesday. This move comes as the company unveiled details about its flagship Kirin 9050 series, the first mass-produced chip utilizing its proprietary LogicFolding architecture.

The Tau Scaling Law framework, which underpins this innovative design, aims to optimize semiconductor development by enhancing data flow between chip components and across computing systems. Huawei's LogicFolding technique, which has surpassed expectations in early testing, integrates more than 50 million hybrid bonds and boosts transistor density by 53.5 per cent, according to the company.

Additionally, Huawei has commenced testing its next-generation Kirin 2027 processor, with preliminary results aligning with the company's targets. This expansion into AI accelerators, such as its Ascend AI chips, has gained traction in China's data center market, capturing a 28 per cent share in 2026 compared to 34 per cent in the same period last year, according to IDC data cited by Reuters.

Despite facing challenges in 2020 due to US sanctions limiting access to advanced chipmaking tools, Huawei has made significant strides in its chip ambitions by developing its homegrown Kirin 9000s processor, which powered the Mate 60 Pro smartphone.