Huawei launches Mate XT2 tri-fold on in-house Kirin 9050 Pro

Huawei launched the Mate XT2, its second-generation triple-folding phone, in Guangzhou on September 7 at 19,999 yuan (about $2,980), with a premium version at 24,999 yuan and sales starting September 12. The bigger story is the chip inside: a new in-house Kirin 9050 Pro that Huawei is pitching as free of US restrictions, according to Nikkei Asia.

Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's consumer business group, called it the company's "most powerful Kirin chip ever." The processor debuts a design Huawei calls LogicFolding, which vertically stacks logic components inside a single die and, per the company, delivers a 53.5% increase in transistor density, reaching roughly 238 million transistors per square millimeter. Huawei frames LogicFolding as the first commercial application of its "Tau Scaling Law," a design philosophy it unveiled in May and pitches as a way around US sanctions on advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

The company claims a 42% overall performance uplift over the earlier Mate XTs, split into 24% on single-core and 52% on multi-core, with on-device multimodal AI running on HarmonyOS 7. Yu also acknowledged the cost side. "Pricing right now is a real challenge, because memory costs have risen sharply. We adopted a lot of new technology, and the cost pressure has been enormous," he told a press conference.

The timing is pointed. Xiaomi launched a rival foldable the same day, and Apple is set to unveil its latest iPhone line on Wednesday, with wide expectations that it too may debut a foldable. It is the latest entry in the running US-China chips story we have been tracking week to week. Earlier today we also covered Inspur's US subsidiary Aivres shipping $3B in Nvidia Blackwell chips to Southeast Asia despite the ban, the same restrictions being routed around in the other direction.