Huawei to Intel: so long, and thanks for all the fish

8 January 2019 by Steve Blum
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Huawei press photo 7jan2019

The two big Chinese players – Huawei and ZTE – have a low profile in Las Vegas. The troubles that the two companies have had this past year took a toll. ZTE was shutdown for a time by the U.S. government and a very senior Huawei executive was jailed in Canada, pending extradition to the U.S. Both companies have been accused of being too cosy with the Chinese government. Neither company held their usual media extravaganzas at CES this year.

Huawei hasn’t gone into stealth mode, though. At a separate event in Shenzen, China, Huawei unveiled a ARM-based chip that’ll power a new line of servers that target the high performance data center – aka big data – market. ARM is a chip architecture that is the alternative to Intel’s venerable x86 central processing units that trace their lineage back to the dawn of the personal computer. But it’s steadily losing market share to ARM-based chips, which are the core technology inside smartphones and tablets. Qualcomm, Apple and many other companies make chips based on ARM architecture, and it has made steady inroads into the server market.

It’s not good news for Intel. According to Huawei’s press release

Huawei has long partnered with Intel to make great achievements. Together we have contributed to the development of the ICT industry. Huawei and Intel will continue our long-term strategic partnerships and continue to innovate together,“ said William Xu, Director of the Board and Chief Strategy Marketing Officer of Huawei.

”At the same time, the ARM industry is seeing a new development opportunity…We will work with global partners in the spirit of openness, collaboration, and shared success to drive the development of the ARM ecosystem and expand the computing space, and embrace a diversified computing era."

Translation: so long, and thanks for all the fish.

Intel doesn’t seem to be worried about Vogon Constructors arriving anytime soon. It offered the usual hot, new chip press release at its CES press conference yesterday.