What you need to know
- Huawei's new Kunpeng D920S10 motherboard allows the Kunpeng 920 processor to power desktop computers.
- Huawei already makes ARM chips for mobile devices and servers.
- U.S. trade restrictions have had a large effect on Huawei's plans for PCs.
A new motherboard from Huawei allows Huawei's Kunpeng 920 processor to power desktops (via Liliputing ). The Kunpeng D920S10 Desktop motherboard was recently announced, and opens to doors for PCs being powered by ARM chips from Huawei.
Liliputing points out that the D920S10 motherboard supports up to 64GB of DDR-2400 RAM and up to six SATA 3.0 drives. It also has three PCIe slots, four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, and an Ethernet controller.
Huawei already makes ARM chips for mobile devices and servers. Expanding into the desktop space could open new doors for the Chinese company. While there's no direct indication that this motherboard and chip combination will be used to power Windows 10 desktops, that doesn't mean it couldn't or won't in the future.
While Windows 10 on ARM was initially referred to by Qualcomm as "Windows 10 on Snapdragon," it is now referred to as "Windows 10 on ARM," which is manufacturer agnostic.
Microsoft recently received a license to export "mass-market software" to Huawei, though the license did not explicitly state that the license covered Windows 10. More details will likely come forward in the future.
