With US sanctions still hammering its supply chains, the Chinese tech giant is leaning heavily on its in-house Kirin X90 chip, which just bagged a Level 2 national security certification from China’s Information Technology Security Evaluation Centre—essentially a golden ticket for adoption in government and enterprise sectors.

Troubled Chipzilla has already felt the squeeze, with Washington yanking Qualcomm and Intel’s special licences to supply Huawei with older-generation chips. Now, even Microsoft's Windows is getting the boot, as Huawei preps HarmonyOS-powered PCs for launch later this year.

For a company that once relied on Intel’s Core processors and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon for its laptops, the shift to homegrown silicon is a seismic one. The Qingyun W515x and L540 laptops, featuring Kirin 9000C and 9006C chips, respectively, have already received certification, paving the way for a wider rollout in the mainland.

Huawei’s consumer boss Richard Yu Chengdong said last year that current laptops might be the last to run Windows.

Despite the sanctions, Huawei’s PC business is growing at a healthy clip. Shipments increased by 15 per cent in 2024, reaching 4.3 million units and capturing an 11 per cent share of the Chinese market. That puts it firmly behind Lenovo’s 35 per cent, but momentum is on its side—except for a slight stumble in Q4, where a lack of new launches saw shipments dip by seven per cent.

With HarmonyOS looming on the horizon, Huawei is betting big on a future where it controls the hardware and software stack.