February 6, 2026 – Following in the footsteps of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has also sung the praises of Huawei. He expressed his astonishment and admiration for Huawei’s ability to attract top-tier talent despite being under the yoke of sanctions.
During a recent earnings call, Tan also weighed in on the open-source debate, sharing his firm stance as a staunch supporter. He sounded a warning note, stating that the United States has fallen behind China in certain technological domains.
Tan pointed to DeepSeek as a wake-up call. A year ago, DeepSeek’s remarkable performance took the global tech community by storm, propelling open-source AI large models into the ranks of the elite. This Chinese New Year, the world is eagerly awaiting whether DeepSeek V4 can once again pull off a miraculous feat.
Seizing this opportunity, Tan delved into the issue of Sino-U.S. technological development. He approached the topic from a unique angle, inevitably touching upon Huawei, which has borne the brunt of sanctions. Initially, he believed that China would lag behind due to the lack of access to advanced GPUs and tools. However, his perspective changed when he learned that Huawei had recruited over 100 CPU architects, all of whom were top-notch professionals.
Tan noted that although Huawei’s architects were unable to obtain advanced tools from European and American companies like Synopsys (primarily EDA and other design software), they managed to circumvent the restrictions and quietly build up capabilities that were previously lacking.
The lesson Tan drew from this is clear: if the United States is not vigilant, Chinese tech companies could make leapfrog advances and leave their American counterparts in the dust.
