I recently revisited this issue, and the conclusion is quite straightforward: It’s not that Huawei “cannot use TSMC”; rather, it is that U.S. regulations have severely constrained its compliant pathways. Xiaomi is able to access TSMC simply because it was never included in the same export control list as Huawei.
Recently, I’ve been observing discussions within the industry, and it seems there’s been a fundamental shift in the definition of “growth.”
Previously, when we discussed the internet, we talked about “four ounces moving a thousand pounds” – writing a few lines of code, renting a few cloud servers, and leveraging excellent interaction and operations to unlock hundreds of millions of users. However, as of 2026, this “low-asset” illusion is being completely shattered by large models.