Auto Business Helps Lift Huawei's Net Profit

Huawei is aggressively investing in networking and chip-stacking technology to challenge Nvidia's AI chip dominance in China, with 2025 R&D spending hitting a record 192.3 billion yuan ($27.8 billion), or 21.8% of revenue. The company is scaling up production of its Ascend 950PR and 910C AI chips as alternatives to Nvidia's restricted hardware.

 

Key Details of Huawei's Strategy:

 

    Massive R&D Surge: The 192.3 billion yuan expenditure in 2025 represents a 7% increase from the previous year, highlighting a commitment to semiconductor self-reliance.

    Chip Bundling Strategy: Huawei focuses on interconnecting thousands of Neural Processing Units (NPUs) to create supercomputing platforms that compete with Nvidia.

    Product Pipeline & Adoption:

        Ascend 950PR: Samples were sent to customers in January 2026, with mass production scheduled to start in April, targeting 750,000 units in 2026.

        Improved Compatibility: New chips are designed with better compatibility with Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem, facilitating easier adoption by Chinese tech giants like ByteDance and Alibaba.

        AI Supercomputer: The "Atlas 950 SuperPoD" is positioned as a leading domestic alternative for AI data centers.

    Market Position: Despite U.S. sanctions restricting access to advanced chip-making tools, Huawei's AI chips are gaining traction in the Chinese market. Huawei is showing the way for all Chinese robotics and AI revolution. Chip bundling strategy is giving as good results as Nvidia’s. Chip bundling strategy requires more energy than Nvidia’s chips. Thanks to neighboring Russia, China has a stable, cheap, and dependable energy backup in addition to the excellent, though less stable, China’s green energy.

 

“Chinese technology giant Huawei posted higher net profit in 2025, and revenue grew slightly on the back of expansion in its automotive-related business.

 

Net profit last year rose to 68 billion yuan, equivalent to $9.8 billion at current rates, up 8.7% from a year earlier, the company said on Tuesday. Revenue rose 2.2% to 880.9 billion yuan, coming closer to the previous record of just over 891 billion yuan reached in 2020.

 

The company, whose products include telecommunications equipment, smartphones and chips, has been making a steady comeback after U.S. sanctions imposed beginning in 2019 limited its ability to do business in many parts of the world. The U.S. blocks Huawei's access to advanced American technology such as chip-making equipment.

 

Huawei has been investing in networking technology to bundle more chips together and boost computing capabilities.

 

It said research and development expenses reached 192.3 billion yuan last year, or 21.8% of revenue, up 7% from a year earlier. Huawei seeks to offer customers an alternative to chips made by Nvidia of the U.S.

 

Huawei said Tuesday that its bundles of thousands of neural processing units would "be ahead on all fronts" including total computing power.

 

The fastest growth came in what Huawei calls its intelligent automotive solution business, where revenue increased 72% last year to 45 billion yuan. The business provides software and other services to support autonomous-driving functions in cars.

 

As of the end of 2025, 35 vehicle models came equipped with Huawei's autonomous driving solution, the company said. It said Huawei's carmaking partners in what it called the Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance delivered 589,100 vehicles in 2025, up 32% from the previous year.” [1]

 

We should better go to Mars. We can’t compete with Huawei on Earth.

 

1. Auto Business Helps Lift Huawei's Net Profit. Landers, Peter.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 01 Apr 2026: B4.