Unless Huawei secures an extension from the software King of the World, the Chinese PC shifter must scrap Windows and turn to Linux or its homemade HarmonyOS.

Given the Fruity Cargo Cult’s dominance in Western premium consumer laptops and Windows' stranglehold on the enterprise and gaming world, this move could make Huawei’s PCs less appealing outside the Middle Kingdom. 

The Chinese tech giant has already declared its intention to ditch Windows for future models, and it's doubling down with an April release of a so-called "AI PC."

This new system, powered by Huawei’s Kunpeng CPU and HarmonyOS, will come packed with DeepSeek LLM-based AI apps to justify the marketing jargon. It’s a bold move that might only resonate in China, where alternatives to US tech have more government backing. 

Meanwhile, Huawei isn’t putting all its eggs in one OS basket. The company is set to launch the MateBook D16 Linux Edition, a carbon copy of its existing D16 laptop minus Windows. That’s not likely to shake up the market, though, given that Linux is still a niche player in the consumer space, clinging to a meagre 3.8 per cent market share. 

Windows remains the undisputed king of desktop and laptop operating systems, ruling 70.65 per cent of machines as of February 2025. Jobs’ Mob follows at a distant 16 per cent, while Linux and ChromeOS barely scrape by.

Unless Huawei’s HarmonyOS miracle happens, its laptops could struggle to gain traction outside of China, where US sanctions and software restrictions continue to clip its wings.