Qualcomm and Huawei have announced a multi-year patent license agreement that will span technologies including 5G, compute, AI, and networking.

The agreement will see Qualcomm purchase “certain US patents” from Huawei across the aforementioned technology areas.

The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, and no timeline for the transaction’s closure was detailed, with the companies simply stating it will follow “receipt of the necessary regulatory approvals.”

However, Huawei has said the deal is expected to push the total value of its patent licensing agreements to more than $6.9 billion once completed.

“Qualcomm has invested in foundational wireless technologies that have enabled successive generations of mobile innovation and earned broad recognition across the global wireless industry,” said John Han, EVP and GM of Qualcomm technology licensing. “This agreement reaffirms industry recognition of Qualcomm’s 5G technology leadership and the success of Qualcomm’s 5G SEP licensing program … [and] likewise reflects Qualcomm's recognition of Huawei's continued innovation and intellectual property in 5G and other technology fields.”

Alan Fan, Huawei’s chief intellectual property officer, added: “Huawei's decades of sustained investment in fundamental R&D have driven innovation and progress in mobile communications and other technology fields. Huawei’s broad contributions to the 4G/5G standards, such as the near-physical-limit signal transmission technology using polar codes, have established Huawei’s leadership in the mobile communications industry, and continuously transformed the way people communicate and live.

“This agreement not only demonstrates the value of Huawei’s innovations, but also recognizes Qualcomm’s foundational contributions to modern communication technologies.”

The announcement comes two years after the US government revoked some export licenses from Intel and Qualcomm, which had allowed the vendors to supply Huawei with certain semiconductors. Qualcomm had previously received a license from the US government in 2020 to sell older 4G chips to Huawei.

Huawei was banned from providing equipment to the US government under the Defense Authorization Act of 2018 due to the company's close links to the Chinese government. A general import ban followed shortly thereafter, with President Donald Trump signing a law in 2020 to prevent US rural telecom carriers from using Huawei network equipment.