Founder & CEO, Huawei
Special Report: "Coffee With Ren," the Huawei CEO
Nov.15 -- Bloomberg's Stephen Engle speaks with Huawei Founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, and a panel of distinguished guests in "A Coffee with Ren", an exclusive discussion about digital sovereignty and the future of 5G technology. They also talk about trade with the U.S, information security and intellectual property.
About Ren Zhengfei
Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, appeared in a livestream on May 25, 2026, to present the company's Tau (τ) Scaling Law, a new principle for semiconductor development. During the event, he stated that Huawei had shifted from geometric scaling to "time scaling" as a guiding principle for electronic system evolution. He said the company had spent six years preparing tools and methodologies, including EDA tools and design approaches, and that a "surprise" for the industry would be delivered in winter 2026, describing it as "a big leap ahead." Zhengfei discussed the introduction of "logical folding," a design methodology for digital circuits that he said optimizes power, performance, density, and cost. He claimed that in 2026, logical folding achieved 238 million transistors per square millimeter in a single step, with a 41% improvement in power efficiency and a nearly 13% increase in maximum clock frequency. He also announced a new bus protocol called UB, which he said unifies interconnect across computer systems. He projected that by 2031, Huawei's high-end chips based on the Tau law would have transistor density equivalent to 14 Å (1.4 nm) processes, with CPU core frequencies exceeding 5 GHz.
Transcript (24 segments)
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Stephen Engle0:12
I'm Stephen Engle and welcome to this Bloomberg special, A Coffee with Ren, an exclusive dialogue with the founder and CEO of Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, along with invited guests: former UN Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani, German smart factory pioneer Detlef Zühlke, and Huawei head of 5G security research Leo Fei.
Huawei is at a critical juncture as the world's telecommunications networks evolve to 5G and beyond. It already has a commanding lead domestically for network gear and smartphones, but its existence overseas is under threat by a U.S. blacklist. Washington has barred Huawei from buying key U.S. components and software without special licenses, and it's pressuring other nations to be wary of Huawei because of its alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party and potential security threats. So I figured that's a good place to start our conversation with Ren. I have to ask directly about some of the accusations, of course, that the United States and others have expressed their concerns about Huawei and potential backdoors and security threats. Mr. Ren, can you again categorically deny that there are any built-in loopholes or backdoors in your equipment? You told me I can ask you anything.
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Ren Zhengfei1:39
You can ask me anything about information security. Actually, this issue will always remain a very important one. It's a bit like the shield and the spear. If there's a shield, there's always a spear. For example, encrypted keys, they're way beyond me. Even if you have the safest key, it might have taken tens of thousands of years to break that encryption in the past, but with quantum computers, it takes only seconds to break that key. So I think information security is a relative term, not an absolute term. People talk about blockchain and praise how great their technology is, but in front of a quantum computer, blockchain may be easily broken. So in terms of information security and encryption, this has always been a difficult issue for people to address. There will always be more attacks at higher levels, and people will always try to find ways to strengthen protection. Should we only use technology to address this issue? I think ultimately we have to count on laws and regulations. If we blame all security problems on technology, for example, cars can flip over, but you can't blame all accidents on car makers. We are an equipment vendor, and our responsibility is to ensure our equipment is free of such issues, and we can make such a commitment to governments around the world. But when we sell our equipment, it's like selling cars. We sell our equipment to telecom operators. It's the telecom operators who operate and manage the data, which are governed by the laws and regulations of sovereign states. In all countries where we operate, we comply with local laws and regulations. We never violate them, and by this strict compliance, we safeguard information security and reliability. So the responsibility we take on is: we ourselves do not violate the law, and secondly, we support governments' regulations.
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Stephen Engle4:22
How do we then reconcile that there are concerns out there, whether it's Chinese or American concerns, about the trustworthiness? And I know the German government is looking at their security catalog and possibly putting in a test of trustworthiness. Is that necessary or is that imperative because of the amount of data that is being transferred around the world and that will be transferred around the world? That data now is said to be the new oil, so it's sensitive and there are sovereign issues.
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Detlef Zühlke5:02
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think we just, we are discussing all this because we recognize right now the value of data. I think we are looking now into the future, and which is, we see just one side of the problem. We always had security problems. We have security problems each day with Windows, for example, with browsers. So what we are discussing here is just to ease, just to prevent such security problems for a new technology coming up. This is quite okay and normal. But also there, I think in future we will have always a situation that somebody will get into the systems, not via Huawei equipment, but in the complete system of software, of everything else what is there. So we should look into the complete system and say we have to improve the security of the system as seen as a complete system. On the other side, we now address fields where the vulnerability is much higher and perhaps much more dangerous, like autonomous cars, for example, are using it, in telemedicine applications, for example. So there we need a much higher level of security than perhaps just when exchanging our personal data to Google or to Facebook or something like this. So this is why we must have this discussion, and this is also why we have to have these rules which you mentioned, which we developed in Germany and which will hopefully be also developed by Europe.
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Stephen Engle6:31
Kishore, do you believe that there used to be and it's possible to create global standards?
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Kishore Mahbubani6:39
Yes, but I think it's important to understand that this is not a technical discussion what we are having, it's a political discussion. And for example, you're right, there have been allegations that Huawei's equipment is creating a backdoor, and through the backdoor the Chinese intelligence agencies can go in and get the information. That's one application. It's made like you all try to be fair with in America, and it's also a fact, we know this, and what Snowden has told us, this: the National Security Agency of the United States can listen to every phone conversation in the world, can pick it up. It is public information now. So clearly, you have, you know, not just one power that may be spying on countries, lots of powers are spying. So if at the end of the day that's the core issue, then frankly the best way to resolve this is not to have a headlong clash between United States and China, which is what's happening now. We should try to have a kind of global discussion. And I want to mention here that I believe actually Europe has a very critical role to play here, because Europe has got the advantage on the one hand of clearly being trusted by the United States, many European states are allies of the United States. Now on the other hand, you know, you're big enough and strong enough to in a sense pass independent judgments. So I mean, I'm actually quite impressed that even though Australia, Canada, New Zealand have all joined the United States and said no, no, no to Huawei, Germany is still open, and Germany is saying yes, let's see whether this can work or not. But if we can all agree on a set of rules on what we can or cannot do with this technology, let's all abide by these rules and we all have a better world, I think it can be.
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Stephen Engle8:47
Up next, Ren says simple survival is not the goal under the U.S. blacklist. If by the end of next year we are still able to develop healthily, it means we have survived the crisis.
Now, it's been six months or so since the blacklist came out. How have you adapted to that and built your business, and you know, not necessarily of course rely on the United States?
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Ren Zhengfei9:28
First of all, we would like to express thanks to our U.S. suppliers for their support and help for the past 30 years. Without their support, we could not have developed into who we are today. We would always like to work with American suppliers into the future and work together on solutions to serve our customers. We always embrace globalization, this is our position. But now with the entity list, supplies have halted. We still have the ability to survive, however, this is not what we pursue. We have no intention, and I personally don't support doing everything on our own. But since we have to do it, this is a short-term approach. This is not our long-term strategy. Right now, we don't see any problems. We won't have problems sustaining our development. I hope we can have another conversation this time next year. By that time, you'll be able to see our company really is very healthy. For the first half of this year, we didn't have the sanctions, so we had very rapid growth, that's for sure. After the implementation of the sanctions, we still have the momentum to grow, that's also for sure. So as of now, we've almost completed adapting many versions of our products. Next year, we will be under U.S. sanctions for the whole year. If by the end of next year we are still able to develop healthily, it means we have survived the crisis. After surviving the crisis, we will focus on whether in the next three to five years we can still lead in technology. Of course, we would like our technology to lead the world, but we need to see if we have that edge. We need to research. We're making adjustments with the hope that in the future we still have the ability to lead. So I think the U.S. sanctions have driven us to work harder and have helped us to get rid of the slack.
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Stephen Engle11:55
5G is going to create this platform for critical industries to communicate and to be more efficient, whether it's energy, transportation, banking, very critical sovereign interest industries. How do we make, when you say set up a smart factory on a 5G network in a critical industry, how do you make it safe?
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Detlef Zühlke12:24
Well, look into the airplanes, you need redundancy. So this is, I think, the only thing that you can convince the people of having real security in high-risk systems. So you will have 5G for communication, but you will have perhaps other paths like cable, steel cables running around, and using these cables as a redundant system. Nevertheless, also when you use cables, you finally end up in some server or so, and you will have the same problems because you will always have the possibility of having a security leak somewhere. So we have learned how to deal with all this over the last years. We have seen that we have never 100% security, and I'm pretty sure that we also will not have 100% security in the future. But we have to get experiences with these new technologies. Now we are just at the edge of introducing 5G. I think in perhaps two or three years we will have much more confidence about the levels of security of this system, not as 5G itself, but in the complete environment of our factory, for example. So but we need time to get all this. And finally, what I said already, we also need trust, we need rules, and we need the confidence when we collaborate with one another.
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Stephen Engle13:49
From a security perspective, how do you generate that trust?
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Leo Fei13:54
Through verification, and you know, also opening up your equipment, whether it's open source or what, to show that there are not backdoors, but also that your equipment cannot be hacked by other parties. Not only Huawei's equipment, but also like other vendors, all the vendors need to pass like a verification, like a Common Criteria, where Professor mentioned like they have the very different security levels, and for each of the levels they have very different definition how to check, how to audit, and what about the coding, what about the process in your factory, and how about like attacking scenarios. So that's very different for each of the levels. So basically, for example, the SIM card in your mobile phone, operators when they purchase like SIM card, just for example, you can choose the different security level to purchase the SIM card. So basically maybe EAL4+ or EAL5, that's a higher level for security mechanism. So when they purchase that, they can say, okay, if my subscriber uses the SIM card, the SIM card cannot be cloned or even be stolen, cannot get the message from the SIM card. Okay, so that different levels. So all the vendors need to pass the verification, even Common Criteria. And like today we have, I mean, telecommunication area have the very new verification mechanisms like NESAS defined by 3GPP and GSMA and other organizations. Yes, we do follow that.
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Stephen Engle15:46
Up next, the panel turns the tables on the U.S. accusations. Google, at the end of the day, is an American Trojan horse.
Ren, if I can talk maybe a little bit about the consumer side of the business, but of course also part of this blacklist, if you will, you know, that you cannot have on your Mate 10 newest phone the Google suite of applications. How does that affect your sales globally, and how does that maybe spur you to do more R&D into your own operating system, Harmony OS?
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Ren Zhengfei16:35
You may indeed, there has been an impact. We had an agreement with Google, and under the agreement we both worked hard to build an ecosystem for the world. The entity list has for sure had an impact on our supplies, but our mobile phone functions are not limited to Google-related apps. We still have a lot of featured functions. Our Mate 30 does not pre-install Google, but still sees a good amount of sales. It means consumers are still willing to accept our phones. The impact to the overseas market will be slightly bigger, the business will shrink a bit, that's for sure. We have mobilized our scientists, experts, thousands of people. We had planned for them to explore future technologies, but now we are allocating resources to fix the holes to revive our competitiveness in the future. We are still working on it.
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Stephen Engle18:07
It's interesting because your president of corporate strategy told Bloomberg yesterday that your smartphone shipments next year in 2020 will grow 20% and that you could get up to 50% of market share domestically in China for smartphones. I mean, is this evidence that the Trump measures against Huawei are not working?
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Ren Zhengfei18:33
You know, I haven't heard of this 20% figure so far. But this year the shipments will be about 240 to 250 million units, I know this number. And they expect big growth next year. However, expectation is not reality. The situation next year may be different, so I'm not certain of the situation for our consumer business group next year.
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Stephen Engle19:02
Do you surely have then worst-case scenarios, best-case scenarios?
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Ren Zhengfei19:13
I think the worst-case scenario is now about 240 or 250 million units. I think that's the worst, most difficult scenario. Things will start getting better in the world.
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Stephen Engle19:25
Right now in the tech world, is there too much reliance on these U.S. vendors for companies like Huawei? And will this, if it is a bifurcation, will it do the opposite, maybe spur domestic creation of these kinds of software and products? If you take a long-term view, is it wiser for the United States to have a China that is competing with, that is completely independent of reliance on the United States, or that it still continues to rely on the United States in many areas? And the result of having a lack of strategy in Washington D.C. is that the United States is pursuing a course of action that may be damaging to long-term American interests. If you see yourself as a long-term geostrategic player, and so it is actually in America's interest to see a continued Chinese dependence on American technology and American companies, because I bet at the end of the day it gives you some degree of leverage. But a China that is completely independent, then you have little or no leverage. And this is why I actually was very puzzled by the decision not to allow Google onto Huawei phones, because if I may be politically incorrect, Google at the end of the day is an American Trojan horse, because once you hook on to Google, you are now hooked on to an American information ecosystem, and that delivers to you, you know, not just American information, American values, American perspectives. You see the world through Google eyes. When you were smiling, I think you agree.
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Ren Zhengfei21:22
I fully agree with Kishore and his views. The U.S. has technology supremacy. The highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest. The U.S. is at the peak of Mount Everest, and China is a bit behind, maybe at the foot of Mount Everest. You know, the meltwater from the snow cap at the top of Mount Everest should flow downhill to irrigate crops and feed livestock. What Mr. Kishore means is that U.S. companies can benefit from the water flowing down to the bottom of Mount Everest. Mr. Kishore believes the water can carry values. I think it carries profits. But if the U.S. decides to stop the water supply and prevent the water from flowing downwards, then people downhill might drill wells in the ground and have sufficient water. They don't pay the U.S. for the water from the top, and there will definitely be alternatives. I think other countries should make hard efforts to enter into this technology field and embrace the opportunities. I think all countries should take action. Now, whether China can take corresponding action is still a question mark, because the industrial base is still not strong. Even though the GDP number is big, but we mainly produce low value-added products. That's not the case for Europe and Japan. It's not the case for many countries, and at the very least, it's not the case for Germany. If the water cannot flow downwards, then it will be frozen at the top for several years. If it's frozen on the top, then what about Wall Street? Without water flowing downwards, they will not have the money.
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Stephen Engle23:44
Thanks for watching A Coffee with Ren on Bloomberg. I'm Stephen Engle.