Analysts, however, believe Huawei could be the biggest challenge of all after a purported major semiconductor breakthrough that flew in the face of U.S. sanctions.

As a result of the latest chip made by China’s largest semiconductor manufacturer SMIC, Washington has raised concerns about how the company was able to do it without access to critical technologies.

It is also being questioned whether the process being used to make these new chips is efficient enough to sustain Huawei’s comeback. Due to alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party and military, the United States has maintained Huawei poses a national security risk. Such a risk has been denied repeatedly by the company.

During the Trump administration, the U.S. government imposed sanctions starting in 2019 that blocked Huawei from access to key technologies such as 5G chips, Google software, and its leading-edge mobile processor, which helped propel it to become the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer.

Huawei’s smartphone business was almost destroyed by U.S. restrictions. Huawei is one of only a few companies that has designed its own smartphone processor, along with Apple and Samsung. The Chinese firm’s HiSilicon division handled this.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, manufactured the chip. As a result of U.S. export restrictions, Huawei was no longer able to source its chips from TSMC because American technology was prohibited anywhere along the chipmaking process.