Huawei said on Monday it had agreed a broad multi-year patent license with Qualcomm covering artificial intelligence, 5G, computing and networking technologies. The agreement includes Qualcomm’s purchase of certain Huawei US patents related to computing, AI and networking. It is the first licensing deal between the two companies to cover 5G technologies. Huawei said the deal should push the total value of its patent-licensing agreements above $6.9 billion once completed, and that its IP licensing business has generated positive revenue since 2021.
The deal extends a monetization strategy Huawei built after US trade restrictions imposed since 2019 limited its ability to buy advanced chips and software. Huawei ramped up research spending in response and has been converting the resulting portfolio into licensing income: it made its first licensing payment to Qualcomm in 2001, received its first licensing income from Motorola in 2011, and signed a licensing deal with HP Inc in August 2026.
For Qualcomm, the agreement secures patent peace with one of the largest holders of 5G standard-essential patents at a moment when its licensing division faces the separate Delaware damages trial with Arm. The financial terms beyond the headline $6.9 billion portfolio figure were not disclosed, and neither company quantified the annual royalty flow. For the sector, the deal is a reminder that the wireless patent wars are increasingly being settled by cross-license rather than courtroom, even as the Qualcomm-Arm fight shows the model still breaks down at the architectural level.