Huawei plans near-frontier semiconductor capability by 2031

Huawei Technologies has said it expects to produce industry-leading semiconductors using new technology within five years, signalling China’s continued push to reduce the impact of U.S. export restrictions on its advanced chip industry.

At a semiconductor symposium in Shanghai on May 25, the Chinese tech giant said its high-end chips will reach transistor density equivalent to 1.4-nanometre processes by 2031, although it did not provide independent performance benchmarks, Reuters reports. 

The announcement comes as Beijing continues efforts to build a self-sufficient semiconductor ecosystem amid tightened U.S. restrictions on access to advanced chipmaking tools.

Huawei’s target is notable given that China’s most advanced proven manufacturing capability is generally considered to be around 7 nanometres, while 1.4 nm is expected to represent the global frontier in advanced chip production toward the end of the decade.

By comparison, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading chipmaker, currently produces 2-nanometre chips and plans to begin mass production of 1.4-nanometre chips by 2028.

China is widely seen as unlikely to reach such levels through conventional manufacturing alone due to restrictions on access to extreme ultraviolet lithography and other critical technologies imposed by the United States.

At the event, Huawei also introduced a new chip design principle, arguing that the industry can no longer rely solely on transistor scaling, a limit increasingly associated with Moore’s Law.

The company said its approach, called the Tau Scaling Law, focuses on improving overall system performance by reducing latency and improving data movement within chips.

“The Tau Scaling Law, as the principle is called, instead focuses on cutting the time it takes signals and data to move through chips and computing systems, Huawei said.”

Experts say the global semiconductor industry is already shifting toward post-Moore’s Law strategies, including advanced packaging and chiplet-based designs, but the challenge is particularly acute for China due to export controls.

“What Huawei is proposing is a shift from traditional node-driven scaling to system-level efficiency scaling,” said He Hui, director of semiconductor research at Omdia.

“Rather than depending solely on smaller transistors, the company is focusing on shortening interconnect, lowering latency and improving data movement inside the chip, which is a credible way to extract more performance when leading-edge lithography is constrained.”

Huawei’s semiconductor ambitions are closely tied to its broader role in China’s artificial intelligence ecosystem, with its Ascend chip series already used to support domestic AI models, including systems developed by DeepSeek.

By Sabina Mammadli