According to the Nikkei Asian Review, sources said that Huawei has stockpiled key US chips that can be used for up to two years to protect its business from the US government's repression.

Sources said that the focus of Huawei's chip reserves is the central processing unit (CPU) produced by Intel for servers and programmable chips from Xilinx. These chips are the "most important components" of Huawei's base station business and emerging cloud business. Now, Huawei has enough inventory to support one and a half to two years.

According to sources, Huawei began to purchase these chips at the end of 2018, shortly after Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada. Huawei disclosed last week that the company invested 167.4 billion yuan (approximately US$23.45 billion) to reserve chips, components and materials in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 73%.

Although Huawei did not disclose what kind of chips it reserves, sources said that Huawei is particularly eager to reserve Xilinx programmable chips. For Huawei base stations and telecommunications equipment rooms, this programmable chip is particularly important, and there is no non-US supplier in the industry that can match Xilinx.

Huawei is still trying its best to purchase high-end server CPUs from Intel and AMD. Intel and AMD are both American chip developers, controlling nearly 98% of the server CPU market worldwide. In addition, since last year, Huawei has been purchasing DRAM memory chips and NAND flash memory chips from Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, and Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Storage).

"Huawei is stocking in'wartime'," the source said, "If the actual demand is 100 chips per month, then order 150 and store them. Memory chips are easier to build up inventory because they are not like processor chips. Upgrade frequently."

Intel, Xilinx and AMD all emphasized in response that they have complied with US laws and regulations.