Connect with us

Published

on

Huawei launched the Mate 70 series in an event in Shenzhen on November 26, 2024. The phones are the first capable of running Huawei’s new operating system called HarmonyOS NEXT.

Huawei

Huawei on Tuesday launched the Mate 70 series of smartphones that can run on the company’s latest self-developed operating system, as the Chinese giant continues its push toward technological independence in the wake of U.S. sanctions.

The Mate 70 is the successor of the Mate 60, which was released last year and sent shockwaves through the tech and political worlds. It contained a semiconductor that many had thought Huawei and China would find difficult to produce, given the widespread the U.S. restrictions that have looked to cut off the world’s second-largest economy from leading-edge chips. Huawei was separated from Google’s Android operating system in 2019, forcing the Chinese tech giant to develop its own software.

Huawei did not mention what chip the phone was running, but Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer and auto businesses, said that the Mate 70 can operate on HarmonyOS NEXT — the company’s first fully self-developed mobile operating system.

Huawei is hoping that the OS can become a viable alternative to Android and Apple’s iOS in China. The company’s early versions of HarmonyOS were built using open-source Android code.

However, HarmonyOS NEXT reportedly no longer uses that code, marking a siginficant update in Huawei’s software development.

“HarmonyOS Next has good potential as an alternative in China,” Will Wong, senior research manager at IDC, told CNBC. “This is not only because of Huawei’s brand name but also because it has been putting effort into attracting developers to join its ecosystem.”

The company’s consumer business was crippled after various White House restrictions removed its access to key tech from chips to software. But with the Mate 60 launch last year, Huawei’s business in China has been revived, putting pressure on Apple.

Huawei started taking reservations for the device earlier this month and has racked up more than 3 million reservations for the device on one Chinese e-commerce website. This may not necessarily translate into sales.

The company talked up the artificial intelligence features of its device, including photo editing tools. It comes at a time when smartphone makers are looking to lure customers in with new AI tools. In China, the race is on among domestic players to make an impression with their AI tools before the launch of Apple Intelligence in the country.

The Mate 70 series comes in three varieties — the Mate 70, Mate 70 Pro and Mate 70 Pro+. The Mate 70 starts at 5,499 ($759) Chinese yuan, while the Mate 70 Pro+ starts at 8,499 yuan.

On Tuesday, Huawei also took the wraps off its latest foldable smartphone called the Mate X6 which starts at 12,999 yuan.

New OS in focus

Over the past year, Huawei appears to be bolstered by the success of its devices in China and, posting growth that has propelled it back into the list of top five smartphone players in the country.

The company has looked to display its technological capabilities publicly from the trifold smartphone launched in September to HarmonyOS NEXT in a bid to show it is not being held back by U.S. sacntions.

In addition to the Mate 70 series and Mate X6 foldable being capable of running the new OS, Huawei said some of its older devices will receive the software upgrade over the coming months.

The success of operating systems is often predicated on the suite of its available apps. During the launch event, Yu showed how, as part of HarmonyOS NEXT, the AI can interact with popular apps such as Alipay, one of China’s biggest mobile payment services.

For now, Huawei’s latest phones alongside HarmonyOS NEXT are very much focused on the Chinese market, as the company still faces mounting challenges abroad.

Continue Reading

Technology

AMD stock continues rally after OpenAI deal, now up 43% this week so far

Published

on

By

AMD stock continues rally after OpenAI deal, now up 43% this week so far

Lisa Su, chair and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), during a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

AMD stock climbed 11% on Wednesday, continuing a massive run since OpenAI announced plans to buy billions of dollars of AI equipment from the chipmaker earlier this week.

On Monday, the ChatGPT maker entered into an agreement to potentially own 10% of AMD, based on its stock price and partnership milestones.

AMD now has a market cap of $380 billion after climbing 4% on Tuesday and 24% on Monday. Shares are up 43% so far this week, on pace for the best weekly gain since April 2016.

The partnership with OpenAI, which has historically been closely linked with Nvidia, has bolstered investor confidence that AMD will be a viable competitor to Nvidia in AI chips.

Read more CNBC tech news

AMD CEO Lisa Su told reporters on Monday that the deal was a “win-win” and that its AI chips were good enough to be used in “at-scale deployments,” or very large data centers like the kind OpenAI and cloud providers build.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Wednesday reacted to the deal on CNBC’s Squawk Box, saying it was “surprising.”

“It’s imaginative, it’s unique and surprising, considering they were so excited about their next-generation product,” Huang said. “I’m surprised that they would give away 10% of the company before they even built it. And so anyhow, it’s clever, I guess.”

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

AMD 5-day stock chart.

Continue Reading

Technology

Google adds limits to ‘Work from Anywhere’ policy that began during Covid

Published

on

By

Google adds limits to 'Work from Anywhere' policy that began during Covid

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google is continuing to put restrictions on remote work, this time with a popular policy called “Work from Anywhere” that was established during the Covid pandemic.

The policy has allowed employees to work from a location outside of their main office for up to four weeks per calendar year. According to internal documents viewed by CNBC, working remotely for even a single day will now count for a full week.

“Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” according to a document that was circulated over the summer, shortly before the change went into effect.

Google isn’t altering its current hybrid schedule, which was also put in place during the pandemic, allowing employees to work from home two days a week. WFA days are distinct from that policy, giving staffers the flexibility to work remotely, but not at home.

“WFA weeks cannot be used to work from home or nearby,” the document says.

Google didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

Tech companies are increasingly forcing employees to spend more time in the office, with the peak of Covid now about five years in the past. Microsoft said last month that employees will be expected to work in an office three days a week starting next year, switching from a policy that allowed most of them to work from home 50% of the time or more with manager approval. Amazon went further, instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office.

Google began offering some U.S. full-time employees voluntary buyouts at the beginning of 2025, and has notified remote workers from several units their jobs would be considered for layoffs if they didn’t return to offices to work a hybrid schedule.

According to the latest changes, employees can’t work from a Google office in a separate state or country during their WFA time due to “legal and financial implications of cross border work.” If in a different location, employees may be required to work during the business hours that align with that time zone, the rules state.

The WFA update doesn’t apply to all Google staffers and may exclude data center workers, and those who are required to be in physical offices. Violations of the policy will result in disciplinary action or termination, the document says.

The issue came up at a recent all-hands meeting.

A top-rated question that was submitted on Google’s internal system described the update as “confusing.”

“Why does even one day of WFA count as a whole week, and can we reconsider the restriction on using WFA weeks to work from home?” the question said.

John Casey, Google’s vice president of performance and rewards, said at the meeting that WFA “was meant to meet Googlers where they were during the pandemic,” according to audio obtained by CNBC.

“The policy was always intended to be taken in increments of a week and not be used as a substitute for working from home in a regular hybrid work week,” Casey said.

WATCH: Google adds Gemini to Chrome for all users in push to bolster AI search

Google adds Gemini to Chrome for all users in push to bolster AI search

Continue Reading

Technology

Jensen Huang says Trump’s H-1B changes would’ve prevented his family from immigrating

Published

on

By

Jensen Huang says Trump's H-1B changes would've prevented his family from immigrating

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on H-1B visas: My family wouldn't have been able to afford the $100,000 fee

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that his family’s immigration to the U.S. “would not have been possible” with the Trump administration’s current policy.

President Donald Trump announced in September that employers would have to pay a $100,000 fee for each H-1B visa, a temporary worker visa granted to foreign professionals with specialized skills.

Huang, who was born in Taiwan and later moved Thailand, immigrated to the U.S. at nine years old with his brother. His parents joined them around two years later.

“I don’t think that my family would have been able to afford the $100,000 and and so the opportunity for my, my family and for me to be here … would not have been possible,” Huang told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Trump’s sudden price hike was a shock to the tech sector, which relies heavily on foreign talent, especially from India and China.

Read more CNBC tech news

Amazon was the top employer for H-1B holders in fiscal year 2025, sponsoring over 10,000 applicants according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Tech juggernauts Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google were also among the top H-1B employers, with over 4,000 approvals each.

“Immigration is the foundation of the American dream,” Huang said, “this ideal that anyone can come to America and through hard work and some talent, be able to build a better future for yourself.”

Huang added that his own parents came to the U.S. so that his family could “enjoy the opportunities” and “this incredible country.”

The CEO confirmed that Nvidia, which currently sponsors 1,400 visas, would continue covering H-1B fees for immigrant employees. Huang said that he hopes to see some “enhancements” to the policy so that there’s “still some opportunities for serendipity to happen.”

While his own family’s journey would have been blocked by Trump’s immigration policy, Huang said Trump’s changes will still allow the U.S. “to continue to attract the world’s best talent.”

And other tech executives have expressed support for the changes, with Netflix‘s Reed Hastings calling the fee “a great solution” in a post on X.

“It will mean H1-B is used just for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs,” Hastings wrote.

In September, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC’s Jon Fortt that he also backed Trump’s changes.

“We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and also sort of outlining financial incentives seems good to me,” Altman said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: Want to be part of almost everything Elon Musk is involved in

Continue Reading

Trending