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The Xiaomi booth at the Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, Spain.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

BARCELONA — U.S. President Donald Trump’s continued clashes with China over tech and trade looms heavy over Chinese smartphone vendors who have grown globally in the past few years, creating uncertainty over whether some of these companies may be targeted by Washington, similarly to Huawei.

At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Chinese electronics players from Xiaomi to Honor and Oppo were out in force, showing off their latest devices. Xiaomi even had its latest electric vehicle — the SU7 Ultra – on show as it looked to create a buzz.

Xiaomi also launched a high-end smartphone while Honor announced a $10 billion investment in AI. Oppo touted its AI privacy features and other lesser-known players like Tecno, owned by Transsion, unveiled products like AI glasses.

Huawei was also in attendance, and showed off the Mate XT, a trifold smartphone which it has launched in international markets as it charts a very cautious comeback to the global sphere.

To some extent, Huawei serves as a cautionary tale to other Chinese players. The Shenzhen-headquartered firm was once the biggest smartphone vendor in the world until U.S. sanctions crushed its handset business.

Just as Huawei is looking to dip its toe into international smartphone sales again and other Chinese players are growing quickly, Trump is back in the White House, which is likely to overshadow these companies’ presence at MWC, according to Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.

“I think also unfortunately for Huawei, just as they are starting to get back on their feet, the re-emergence of Trump and his overall strategy with regards to ‘America First’ and placing pressure on the Chinese, not only affects Huawei, but it affects all of the Chinese manufacturers that will be at MWC,” Wood told CNBC.

“I think it’s very much going to be the elephant in the room at MWC with regards to a huge amount of investment and lavish spending by the Chinese manufacturers, with the shadow of what’s going to happen in coming months hanging over them.”

Xiaomi, Oppo and Honor were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Chinese players have been a feature of MWC for several years as they’ve expanded their footprint globally. Now eight of the top 10 smartphone players are headquartered in China, according to Canalys data. Xiaomi for example is the world’s third-largest.

Xiaomi displayed its new SU7 Ultra electric car at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

Xiaomi has grown its presence in Europe while others, like Transsion, have focused on emerging markets. With that success also comes the potential for further scrutiny, Wood said.

“The danger for these manufacturers is if they put their head too far above the parapet, they’ll start to get scrutiny from the U.S. administration,” Wood said.

“So I think they have to tread a fine line in Barcelona and make sure that they don’t make too much noise because the last thing they want is to be the poster child for Chinese technology and become the latest focal point for Trump and his advisors.”

So far, Trump has focused on raising tariffs on Chinese imports. But there has been little action on the technology restriction front. Under the previous President Joe Biden, Washington brought in several rounds of restrictions that looked to cut off China’s access to advanced technology in areas such as semiconductors.

Europe focus

Other analysts agree there is a risk of increased scrutiny but point to a couple of key reasons why other Chinese manufacturers may not be restricted the way Huawei was.

Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for data and analytics at International Data Corporation (IDC), said that the Chinese brands are focusing their efforts on Europe rather than the U.S., which could help deflect scrutiny from Washington.

“They [Chinese players] definitely don’t have a chance selling in the U.S., but if they continue targeting Europe as they are, I don’t think that’s a risk and I don’t think it will come to a point where the U.S. administration will tell whatever countries in Europe they need to stop selling Xiaomi or Honor or any other brand,” Jeronimo told CNBC.

“I don’t think there’s a massive risk because at the end of the day as they are not targeting U.S. consumers.”

Honor announced at $10 billion AI investment called the Honor Alpha Plan at the Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona.

Arjun Kharpal | CNBC

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AI voice startup ElevenLabs pushes global expansion as it gears up for an IPO

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AI voice startup ElevenLabs pushes global expansion as it gears up for an IPO

Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup based in London. It competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

LONDON — ElevenLabs, a London-based startup that specializes in generating synthetic voices through artificial intelligence, has revealed plans to be IPO-ready within five years.

The company told CNBC it is targeting major global expansion as it prepares for an initial public offering.

“We expect to build more hubs in Europe, Asia and South America, and just keep scaling,” Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs’ CEO and co-founder, told CNBC in an interview at the firm’s London office.

He identified Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico as potential new locations. London is currently ElevenLabs’ biggest office, followed by New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Japan, India and Bangalore.

Staniszewski said the eventual aim is to get the company ready for an IPO in the next five years.

“From a commercial standpoint, we would like to be ready for an IPO in that time,” he said. “If the market is right, we would like to create a public company … that’s going to be here for the next generation.”

Undecided on location

Fundraising plans

ElevenLabs was valued at $3.3 billion following a recent $180 million funding round. The company is backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and ICONIQ Growth, as well as corporate names like Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom.

Staniszewski said his startup was open to raising more money from VCs, but it would depend on whether it sees a valid business need, like scaling further in other markets. “The way we try to raise is very much like, if there’s a bet we want to take, to accelerate that bet [we will] take the money,” he said.

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U.S. lifts chip software curbs on China amid trade truce, Synopsys says

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U.S. lifts chip software curbs on China amid trade truce, Synopsys says

Synopsys logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with the flag of China in the background.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

The U.S. government has rescinded its export restrictions on chip design software to China, U.S.-based Synopsys announced Thursday. 

“Synopsys is working to restore access to the recently restricted products in China,” it said in a statement

The U.S. had reportedly told several chip design software companies, including Synopsys, in May that they were required to obtain licenses before exporting goods, such as software and chemicals for semiconductors, to China. 

The U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

The news comes after China signaled last week that they are making progress on a trade truce with the U.S. and confirmed conditional agreements to resume some exchanges of rare earths and advanced technology.

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Datadog stock jumps 10% on tech company’s inclusion in S&P 500 index

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Datadog stock jumps 10% on tech company’s inclusion in S&P 500 index

The Datadog stand is being displayed on day one of the AWS Summit Seoul 2024 at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, on May 16, 2024.

Chris Jung | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Datadog shares were up 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after S&P Global said the monitoring software provider will replace Juniper Networks in the S&P 500 U.S. stock index.

S&P Global is making the change effective before the beginning of trading on July 9, according to a statement.

Computer server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise, also a constituent of the index, said earlier on Wednesday that it had completed its acquisition of Juniper, which makes data center networking hardware. HPE disclosed in a filing that it paid $13.4 billion to Juniper shareholders.

Over the weekend, the two companies reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which had sued in opposition to the deal. As part of the settlement, HPE agreed to divest its global Instant On campus and branch business.

While tech already makes up an outsized portion of the S&P 500, the index has has been continuously lifting its exposure as the industry expands into more areas of society.

DoorDash was the latest tech company to join during the last rebalancing in March. Cloud software vendor Workday was added in December, and that was preceded earlier in 2024 with the additions of Palantir, Dell, CrowdStrike, GoDaddy and Super Micro Computer.

Stocks often rally when they’re added to a major index, as fund managers need to rebalance their portfolios to reflect the changes.

New York-based Datadog went public in 2019. The company generated $24.6 million in net income on $761.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, according to a statement. Competitors include Cisco, which bought Splunk last year, as well as Elastic and cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Datadog has underperformed the broader tech sector so far this year. The stock was down 5.5% as of Wednesday’s close, while the Nasdaq was up 5.6%. Still, with a market cap of $46.6 billion, Datadog’s valuation is significantly higher than the median for that index.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

CNBC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on the cloud computing outlook

Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on the cloud computing outlook

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