14 DAY TRIAL // ARM suspended its dealings and support for Huawei following the trade injunction imposed by The United States against the Chinese company.
Just last week, The United States included Huawei on a blacklist of companies that can’t do business with American technology. Shortly after that, Google announced that it suspends all support for Android, with the exception of what’s provided through AOSP. The restrictions were eased up a little for the next 90 days so that current users are not affected.
The problem between Huawei, The United States, and a few other countries are much more complex. The gist of it is that China might be using Huawei to spy on western countries through phones, tablets, and 5G technology. It’s a messy business, and no one can actually prove anything. It doesn’t exonerate Huawei, but it’s not helping them either.
ARM is following
ARM is a UK-based company (owned by a Japanese conglomerate) that makes pretty much all of the important hardware for phones in today’s market. There are a few others, but most phones are using their solutions. But since they are UK-based, you might be wondering why they would comply with a US order and cease working with Huawei.
According to a BBC report, ARM says that their chips contain “US-origin technology.” Which is exactly why ARM is suspending business dealing with Huawei. This in this turn, means that Huawei might have received a mortal blow.
It’s possible that they have a stock of hardware, but it’s unlikely enough for the number of devices they are usually shipping. There are a few scenarios that could play out in the next few days of weeks.
One of the possibilities is that the Chinese government is going to put pressure on the United States to lift the ban. Many American companies are using China to build their products, and they could be thrown out of the country.
It’s also quite possible that Huawei doesn’t’ have enough resources to go on, even if the situation would be eventually resolved. And, to make things worse, other companies that are supplying Huawei with products might stop as well.