Hacker News

No Intel, no Qualcomm: Huawei unveils its first '100% domestic' desktop(scmp.com)

44 points by yogthos 2 days ago | 34 comments

[–] vazark 2 days ago

In retrospect, the Huawei ban might have been the best thing that happened to Chinese tech sector

[–] jogu 2 days ago

Interesting, with a tagline like '100% domestic' I would have expected this to be RISC-V based but it's actually ARM.

[–] ksec 2 days ago

I believe this is still ARM China, not ARM ARM ( I can't remember what's the name they used in China ).

[–] mike_hearn 2 days ago

China took direct control of the Chinese ARM subsidiary years ago.

[–] Havoc 2 days ago

That’s a pretty big deal if that 100% is genuinely deep/all the way.

Don’t think any other country can do end to end in house?

[–] maxglute 2 days ago

If cpu x90, then process smic n+2, probably still ASML DUVs... if not implication profound. Even if domestic tooling, can't imagine this full end to end, they're aggressively indigenizing and validating all the semi inputs, i.e. gases, chemicals last few years but seems too early to have all parts covered. When they do (unlikely now) in which case, yeah probably PRC only country with entire closed loop indigenous semi chain -> hardware -> software stack. On the other hand I wouldn't put past that some very low volume 100% domestic trial line exist.

[–] MiroslavPokorny 2 days ago

The CPU is based on ARM and English company that designs CPUs, and the OS is a fork of Android which is American.

[–] russli1993 2 days ago

no, they just use ARM instructions set, the core design such as CPU, GPU, NPU, etc is all their own, like Apple. OS is not fork of Android, there is no Android code in HarmonyOS. HarmonyOS uses Linux kernel but has its own user space systems.

[–] MiroslavPokorny 1 day ago

The instruction set is the value.

Writing a new ISA with a completely different instruction set is a far larger task than designing the silicon. This is also why the horrible ISA that is x86 is still alive and running today.

[–] russli1993 1 day ago

is it? Creating an ISA is not hard right? Trade off and design choices on multiple simple or complex instructions, or what types of instructions to have, and special instructions for vectors, encryption, virtualization, etc. Still relatively simple if you are just talking about the ISA itself. The hard part is ecosystem adoption, drivers, compilers, existing low-level code written for the ISA. And the hard part is the high-performance CPU core. I have no doubt Huawei can create a different ISA if they want to. They use ARM ISA now because HarmonyOS can still run Android Apps if there is an android app the user uses but has no native HarmonyOS version, and Android apps with NDK are compiled to ARM

[–] MiroslavPokorny 1 day ago

> is it? Creating an ISA is not hard right?

Its hard, but the value of the software is a massive effort, that cannot be translated or reproduced under a new ISA.

I think we both agree that in x86 should have been retired a long time ago, but its only alive because of the legacy that accompanies it.

> The hard part is ecosystem adoption, drivers, compilers, existing low-level code written for the ISA.

Exactly. There are so many parts and probably many more. The volume of effort to complete that for a new platform will probably not be done. Apple is a different case because they control the MAC platform in full.

> I have no doubt Huawei can create a different ISA if they want to.

Ive also played tennis with people who said they can win Wimbledon, and until THEY win, i dont believe them.

The only way to know for sure is to have a new ISA, but H have yet to try.

[–] flanz_10 2 days ago

fwiw harmonyos hasnt used android/linux for a few years. they still support apks via an aosp container, though

[–] yogthos 2 days ago

Except now both Kirin X90 and HarmonyOS are their own thing. Just like Android itself is based off Linux, but is its own thing now too. What matters is that the chips and the OS are developed domestically in China without reliance on British or American companies.

[–] MiroslavPokorny 1 day ago

I guess it all depends on whether K and H want to pay ARM in the future for their leading (after Apple) designs...

What do you think will happen tomorrow ? What else is the safe bet ?

[–] dmitrygr 2 days ago

  >Don’t think any other country can do end to end in house?

Russia can, France could if they wanted to

[–] klrefg 2 days ago

If you count Russia then US obviously can as well. If you lower the bar even slightly further to 80s/90s tech even more countries would qualify.

[–] dmitrygr 2 days ago

I assumed the US was included as a given, what with Intel here

[–] Neywiny 2 days ago

The US can. There are domestic packaging people and board houses. I think the EU can but I'm not sure and that's not a country.

[–] abdullahkhalids 2 days ago

https://archive.ph/7g2LM

[–] astrashe2 2 days ago

This seems significant.

[–] metalman 2 days ago

Huawei has a 'good news' drop ready for every time the rest of tech has a bad day. At this point it is quite evident that the US/euro moves against Huawei/China were badly miscalculated, and have only served to focus and motivate them, and it's the reality of bieng cut off from imported tech that is actualy very good for there R and D , marketing, financial management, investment, manufacturing,government planning and regulation, gone is the need to juggle importing the 'latest' tech,with domestic production, and now nobody can say diddly boo about them bieng protectionist, ever again. Worse, a look at what Chinas imports before the tech ban were will almost certainly be an exact match for the margin that big tech needed to stay afloat this week. Extra worse, everybody, even microsoft and apple hard cores are going to wonder if the Huawei desktop is actualy just simple and nice to use, but we wont know because we , yes, us, have FREEDOM FROM CHOICE™®©

we are living in a cartoon distopian apocalyps as drawn by the worst petulant office dweeb who is doing WAY to much acid on the weekends

[–] bigbadfeline 2 days ago

> we are living in a cartoon distopian apocalyps as drawn by the worst petulant office dweeb who is doing WAY to much acid on the weekends

I don't think their weekdays are any different.

[–] MaxPock 2 days ago

This will make some people very angry because, according to them, you are supposed to close up shop, not build internal capacity and capabilities, when America sanctions you.

[–] flanz_10 2 days ago

who is "some people"?

[–] russli1993 2 days ago

USA China hawks, people want to attack China

[–] flanz_10 2 days ago

That always made me laugh. Like, what did you expect them to do? Shrivel up and become a vassal state?

[–] syradar 2 days ago

So not really 100% domestic since it runs on ARM and is built using C, C++, Rust and JavaScript but they are close. I prefer something more open like Linux or more integrated like macOS, but fun for them.

[–] pjmlp 2 days ago

ARM is a design not an implementation.

C and C++ are ISO standards, with multiple implementations.

JavaScript is an ECMA/ISO standard, with multiple implementations.

Rust is sponsored by an international foundation.

Additionally, Harmony OS is its own thing, it has long stop being an Android fork, with ArkTS and Cangjie, as the main way to develop applications for the platform.

https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/arkts

https://cangjie-lang.cn/en

[–] adrian_b 2 days ago

By that standard, a computer designed and made in USA that would use ARM and C++ would not be American, because at their initial origins ARM was British and C++ Danish (and inspired by the Norwegian SIMULA 67). Even the C programming language cannot be called American by your methodology, because it includes many features taken from the ALGOL 68 language, which were introduced in it mainly by a Dutch team.

The reality is that computer technology is global. It does not belong to any single country.

If you analyze any piece of hardware or software, it aggregates various elements that have their origins in many countries.

What matters is whether you can design and build a complete system, not from where you might have learned each of the great number of things required for this.

[–] deterministic 1 day ago

Interesting that the tech ban has resulted in US companies slowly but steadily loosing the worlds largest market for computer hardware. I wonder what will happen when China has saturated its home market and starts out-competing US companies internationally.

[–] jbverschoor 2 days ago

And no ASML

[–] RetroTechie 2 days ago

"100% designed & produced in China" doesn't exclude the possibility of "using ASML machine to process the wafers".

That said: entirely possible it includes "home-grown wafer stepper machines". Article is light on the details here.

[–] seanmcdirmid 1 day ago

They are working on their own machines, it’s not clear if they have something used production yet or not. They will get there eventually.

[–] adrian_b 2 days ago

After the parent article, the next article is about a Chinese start-up showing for the first time a prototype for EUV lithography.

However, they estimate that they will reach the stage when this can be used in production in 3 to 5 years.