Qualcomm will pay Huawei for patent rights under a multi-year cross-licensing agreement that highlights both 5G and AI technologies, and will buy some of Huawei’s U.S. patents outright, the firm announced. The joint announcement comes 25 years after Huawei began to pay Qualcomm for patents, a reversal that reportedly has Qualcomm paying for the first time. The agreement also covers compute and networking patents, and the patent purchase will close once it receives regulatory approval.

The two companies’ licensing ties date back to 2001, when Huawei, then a Chinese telecom-infrastructure supplier, took a royalty-bearing license to build CDMA network equipment. Qualcomm, which once supplied chips for some Huawei phones, stopped counting royalties from Huawei in its revenue in early 2025.

The “broad patent license agreement” allows “cross licenses” and reflects both companies’ commitment to intellectual property rights and to licensing consistent with “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.” The deal involves no other business cooperation, Huawei said, according to SCMP; this implies no chip sales are involved. The deal follows a settled back royalty dispute in 2020, the U.S. revoking Qualcomm’s license to sell some hardware to Huawei in 2024, and the expiration of Huawei’s license by early 2025.

Qualcomm’s patent purchase covers compute, AI, networking, and “other technologies,” according to the announcement, but the number of patents was not disclosed, nor was any value figure. Each company credits the other’s portfolio. This suggests that the two are trading official recognition of each other’s patents.

9 billion, counting from its first licensing income from Motorola in 2011.

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