Huawei Mate 60 and Mate 60 Pro were launched in China without any special event or announcement beforehand. More strangely on Huawei's official website, information about the chip used is also kept secret. Just a few days after its launch it was confirmed to use the Kirin 9000s chip and support 5G networks.
Yesterday US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced that the American government will study the Kirin 9000s chip to see if the technology restrictions have been violated by Huawei and SMIC. America says it is impossible for China to have self-developed technology for 7nm chips.
The Kirin 9000s are manufactured using 7nm technology which has been prevented from being exported to China since the technology restrictions were imposed. China is only allowed to import 14nm and above chip manufacturing technology. SMIC as a Chinese manufacturing plant was affected by this obstacle and Huawei stopped the production of their Kirin chips two years ago for the same reason.
America wants to investigate whether Huawei and SMIC secretly imported this 7nm technology. Previously according to Bloomberg, Huawei was accused of building several chip factories secretly through a third company.
Technology restrictions imposed by the U.S. on China were increased under the Joe Biden administration. Exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips, putting Chinese supercomputer companies on the entity list and banning TikTok on civil servants' devices were all done on national security grounds.