Huawei Technologies said Monday it expects to develop high-end chips with transistor density equivalent to 1.4-nanometer processes by 2031, outlining a new design approach as China looks for ways to narrow its semiconductor gap under U.S. technology restrictions.
The Chinese technology company introduced what it calls the Tau Scaling Law at the 2026 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems in Shanghai. Huawei said the approach shifts chip development away from relying mainly on smaller transistors and toward reducing the time it takes signals and data to move through chips and computing systems.
Huawei said the new principle is meant to guide semiconductor development as Moore’s Law becomes harder to sustain. Moore’s Law, the decades-old industry pattern of improving chips by shrinking transistors, has slowed as chip components approach physical and economic limits.
The company’s announcement is significant because China’s most advanced proven chipmaking capability is widely viewed as being around 7 nanometers, while 1.4 nanometers is expected to be close to the global frontier near the end of the decade, Reuters reported. TSMC, the world’s largest producer of advanced chips, currently uses 2-nanometer technology and plans to introduce a 1.4-nanometer process for mass production in 2028.
Huawei did not provide independent performance data for the new approach, Reuters reported. The company’s claims center on design and system-level efficiency rather than a direct breakthrough in the advanced lithography equipment normally needed to manufacture leading-edge chips.
The approach includes a chip architecture called LogicFolding, which Huawei says can shorten internal wiring, reduce signal-propagation load and improve transistor density and circuit performance. Huawei said Kirin smartphone chips scheduled for launch in fall 2026 will be the first to use LogicFolding.
Huawei also said it has designed and mass-produced 381 chips over the past six years based on the Tau Scaling Law, serving industries including smartphones and AI computing. The company said high-end chips built under the approach are expected to reach transistor density equivalent to 14 angstroms, or 1.4 nanometers, by 2031.
The announcement comes as U.S. export controls continue to restrict Chinese companies’ access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing tools, including equipment needed for the most advanced process nodes. Those restrictions have made alternative chip-design methods more important to Beijing’s goal of building a self-sufficient semiconductor industry.
Huawei has become one of the central companies in that effort. The company was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist in 2019, cutting off access to many U.S.-origin technologies and limiting its ability to rely on some global chip suppliers. The restrictions forced Huawei to lean more heavily on domestic semiconductor development and internal backup projects.
The company returned to global attention in 2023 with the launch of its Mate 60 smartphone series, which used a 5G-capable chip produced by China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. using 7-nanometer technology. The launch was viewed as a sign that China could still make progress despite U.S. controls, although analysts said the country remained behind the most advanced global manufacturing nodes.
Huawei’s chip push is also tied to China’s artificial intelligence market. Its Ascend processors have become an important domestic alternative to Nvidia’s AI chips, whose most advanced versions are restricted from sale to China. Reuters reported that demand for Ascend chips has increased this year as Chinese technology companies look for local options.
Huawei said LogicFolding will be applied to Ascend chips by 2030 and to large AI clusters used in data centers. Those systems require large numbers of chips working together, making data movement, latency and energy efficiency central performance issues.
Analysts cited by Reuters said Huawei’s approach is credible as a way to improve performance when leading-edge lithography is constrained, but they also warned that cost, power consumption, heat and system integration remain major obstacles, especially for cloud AI servers.
He Tingbo, president of Huawei’s semiconductor business and director of its Scientist Committee, said the company still needs new design tools and better ways to manage overheating. She said Huawei expects its solutions for mobile computing and AI computing to remain competitive over the next decade.
Huawei’s announcement does not mean China has closed the gap with TSMC, Samsung or other leading chipmakers. It does show that Huawei is trying to route around manufacturing restrictions by improving chip architecture, packaging and system-level design. For China’s semiconductor industry, the strategy is a sign that the race for advanced chips is no longer only about smaller nodes, but also about finding new ways to extract more performance from constrained technology.