Huawei Claims Breakthrough in Chip Performance? Party Media Exaggerates While Internet Users Mock

Huawei's logo. (AI-generated image)

[People News] Due to U.S. sanctions, Huawei's chip technology has faced significant restrictions. Recently, Huawei announced the discovery of a 'new guiding principle for the development of the semiconductor industry'—the Tao (τ) Law. The Chinese Communist Party's media outlets have made grand claims, stating that this represents 'breakthroughs in transistor density and system performance' and 'redefining the evolution of semiconductors.' However, this has led to widespread ridicule from netizens in mainland China, who commented, 'a typical case of boasting gone too far.'

According to New Tang Dynasty Television, on May 25, at the 2026 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (IEEE ISCAS 2026), Huawei's director and president of the semiconductor business department, He Tingbo, delivered a speech titled 'Exploration and Practice of New Paths in Semiconductors.' In his address, he proposed replacing 'geometric scaling' with 'time (τ) scaling' as the new guiding principle for the evolution of semiconductors and electronic systems—the Tao (τ) Law. He asserted that 'through innovative technologies such as logical folding, we continuously compress signal propagation delay and enhance transistor density, thereby achieving ongoing evolution in semiconductors and electronic systems.' 

Following this, the Chinese Communist Party's media, including Xinhua News Agency and the People's Daily, reported extensively, claiming that Huawei's proposed 'law' is 'on par with Moore's Law,' 'rewriting global semiconductor rules,' and 'achieving breakthroughs in chip performance,' among other statements.

However, on the internet in mainland China, this has triggered a wave of mockery from netizens: "Huawei's 'Tao Law' - just another instance of cleverly packaged rhetoric. "Claiming to be leading in the automotive sector, but their reputation has already collapsed; is the chip sector going to face the same downfall?" "It's meaningless; after all, it's not a genuine technological breakthrough, just a case of 'let's find a pattern in the industry, give it a name, and have some fun'" "They can't produce lithography machines, so they just set them aside and switch to another track to keep winning." 

Other netizens have also mocked Huawei: "In simple terms, they just made a ranking list and are bragging about it themselves. "When their exam scores are poor, they create their own set of questions and take it themselves, claiming their paper scores 100 points; why should anyone not acknowledge that?" "It's all nonsense, misleading outsiders; apart from profiting from the stock market, what else can they do?" 

"A privately-owned commercial company with unclear equity, at an international industry business exchange seminar, uses political language to announce a law they claim to have invented, asserting that this law is revolutionary and has become the principle representing industry development. As for the logic behind this law? What principles does it entail? Is it recognised within the industry? Will textbooks be revised? Will the Nobel Prize committee award it? None of that matters; what matters is the hype, and they win. In short: overtaking on a curve, they are far ahead."

In simpler terms: I really can't produce 3-nanometer chips, and seeing my competitors already succeeding has made me anxious. So, I might as well create a gimmick to keep deceiving people. Look at my theory; it claims that 7-nanometer technology can achieve 3-nanometer performance. Whether it's true or not doesn't matter; my fans are gullible and will believe it anyway.

Additionally, some netizens have pointed out that He Tingbo's keynote speech at the conference, titled 'A Time Scaling Theory for Multi-Layer Electronic Systems', is more of a viewpoint or prospect article rather than a research paper. It lacks IEEE or academic journal peer review, has not disclosed specific measurement methods for τ, and does not clarify the equivalent conversion formula. Thus, it is not a new law recognised by the academic community, but rather a marketing slogan from Huawei.

Netizens have criticised this as a classic case of excessive boasting. The essence of this chip stacking is merely an advancement in design, which has nothing to do with the current bottleneck in manufacturing processes. Furthermore, this stacking technique is not new; Intel and AMD have been using stacking technology for years. Have they boasted about it? This Great Leap Forward mentality is unacceptable.

In reality, it's just rebranding something that everyone in the industry is already doing with a new term and claiming it for marketing purposes, similar to how the automotive industry refers to assisted driving as advanced intelligent driving.

The core idea is to present old concepts in a new guise, accompanied by an eye-catching Chinese name (τ, which sounds like '韜光養晦') to generate buzz. This announcement was made at the ISC China event in Shanghai, using the IEEE brand to enhance its visibility, but the primary audience is the media and the general public, rather than the 'law verifiers' within the industry.

The term '韜(τ)定律'—combining '韜光養晦' with the time constant τ—serves as a clever play on words that is highly shareable. It is evident that this has been strategically branded, with one of its objectives being to seize the 'discourse power over high-end chip performance definitions.' △