According to Bloomberg, a teardown of Huawei’s Ascend 910C AI accelerators by Canadian research firm TechInsights revealed dies manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM2E) sourced from both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

The findings suggest Huawei used stockpiled foreign technology to continue producing high-performance chips.

The 910C, which began mass shipments earlier this year, packages two older 910B dies into a single unit.

According to TSMC, the components identified in the teardown came from wafers produced before September 2020, when the company ceased supplying Huawei in compliance with US export rules.

TSMC said it continues to comply with all restrictions and added: “Shipments and manufacturing of that chip have been halted since then.”

SK Hynix and Samsung both stressed they had not done business with Huawei since the restrictions came into force.

The company said: “SK Hynix ceased all transactions with Huawei after the restrictions were placed in 2020.”

Samsung similarly noted it “continues to strictly comply” with export rules.

The revelation highlights how Huawei was able to build up inventories of critical components - from logic dies to memory - before sanctions tightened in late 2024, including bans on sales of HBM2 and above.

Analysts warn that as those stockpiles run out, Huawei and China’s domestic chipmakers could face a severe bottleneck in producing AI hardware, particularly with HBM, a technology still dominated by Korean and US firms.

While Chinese companies such as CXMT are making progress in high-bandwidth memory development, experts believe Huawei will remain heavily reliant on foreign components for the near term, raising questions about Beijing’s ambitions to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency.