At a Shanghai conference on Monday, He Tingbo (何庭波), Huawei board member and president of its semiconductor division, unveiled what she termed "Tao's Law" — a proposed successor to Moore's Law that uses innovations including "logic folding" to achieve chip performance equivalent to 1.4 nanometers by 2031.
The timeline still lags TSMC's target of mass-producing 1.4nm chips by 2028. But for a company long trapped at what analysts call "near-7nm" capability, it would represent a dramatic leap — particularly given that Moore's Law is widely considered exhausted, and that 1.4nm approaches the physical limits of conventional silicon. If Huawei achieves genuine mass production at that node, China would no longer be strangled by American chip controls.
How Semiconductors Became Washington's Sharpest Weapon
Among all the instruments Washington has deployed in its technology war with Beijing, chip controls have proven the most consequential. The campaign began with restrictions on selling advanced chips to Huawei, escalated into sweeping export controls on high-end technology, and ultimately extended to a near-total ban on selling advanced chipmaking equipment to Chinese manufacturers. AI chip restrictions followed. Layer by layer, the United States has constructed what amounts to a siege — aimed, in the bluntest terms, at pushing China's semiconductor industry back to the stone age.
The central chokepoint is the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine, or EUV — produced exclusively by Dutch firm ASML and indispensable for manufacturing leading-edge chips anywhere in the world. Under sustained U.S. pressure, allied governments have joined the blockade, making it impossible for China to acquire EUV systems. Unlike Nvidia AI chips, which have reportedly been smuggled into China through third-party channels, EUV machines are too large, too tightly controlled, and too few in number to be redirected covertly. Even if China somehow obtained a unit, it would be unusable without ongoing technical support from the manufacturer.
Why the Verdict on "Tao's Law" Remains Open
Huawei's claimed breakthrough relies not on acquiring EUV, but on bypassing it entirely through the alternative techniques bundled under the "Tao's Law" framework. Whether this will succeed remains genuinely uncertain. Technical feasibility in a laboratory is a long way from commercial viability: nuclear fusion has been technically demonstrated for more than 70 years and has yet to be commercialized. For Huawei's approach to matter strategically, it must clear the far higher bar of mass production at competitive cost.
This is not the first time EUV alternatives have been announced. In 2022, reports emerged that U.S. memory chipmaker Micron had developed manufacturing techniques that did not require EUV lithography. Japanese manufacturer Kioxia similarly developed nanoimprint lithography, or NIL, achieving sub-10nm geometries at lower cost — with estimates suggesting applicability down to 5nm. Yet by the following year, Micron had begun adopting EUV for production, confirming that sub-10nm manufacturing remained effectively dependent on ASML's machines. Canon has since produced NIL equipment capable of 2nm-class manufacturing, but for chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung — whose entire production ecosystems are built around DUV and EUV — the switching costs remain prohibitive. Advanced chip manufacturing has not yet found a commercially viable route around EUV.
ASML's Anxiety — and the Logic of Both Sides
ASML itself is acutely aware of the risks its own exclusion from China creates. China was historically the company's largest market, accounting at its peak for close to half of total revenue. Even under current restrictions preventing the sale of EUV and advanced DUV systems to China, Chinese clients still represent 20 to 30 percent of ASML's revenue. The damage extends beyond lost sales. As ASML's CEO has stated publicly, each tightening of the sanctions ratchet pushes China further toward developing its own alternatives — and once China masters advanced lithography independently, it may begin exporting that technology globally. The West, he warned, risks converting its best customer into its most formidable competitor.
The broader strategic logic is now clearly visible on both sides. The United States is fighting a chip war; China is playing its rare earth card. Each knows the other's vulnerability. The current trade ceasefire is not a resolution — it is a breathing space, with both powers racing to eliminate their dependencies before the next confrontation.
The Rare Earth Precedent — and Why Quick Fixes Are Fantasy
Washington has sharply increased rare earth investment since last year, but realistic assessments suggest that building sufficient domestic or "friend-shored" production will take five to ten years at minimum. History is instructive. When China restricted rare earth exports during the 2010 Senkaku Islands dispute with Japan, Japanese industry sourced 90 percent of its rare earths from China. Japan spent the next 15 years aggressively diversifying — and today still depends on China for roughly 60 percent of its rare earth supply. A decade and a half of sustained effort produced only a partial reduction in dependence. The expectation that Western economies can decouple from Chinese rare earths within a few years is not grounded in evidence.
2031: The Year That Will Determine Who Won the Chip War
If Huawei genuinely achieves mass production of 1.4nm-equivalent chips by 2031 — at volumes and costs that are commercially competitive — it would mark a decisive, if provisional, Chinese victory in this technological confrontation. Given China's manufacturing scale, engineering depth, and demonstrated capacity to concentrate national resources on strategic objectives, a breakthrough was always a matter of time and investment rather than fundamental impossibility. From the initial chip restrictions on Huawei in 2018 to a potential 2031 breakthrough would represent 13 years. The world will know in five years whether that timeline holds. （Related： Samsung Quits China Appliance Market, Outpaced by Huawei and Xiaomi ｜ Latest ）
