Huawei hasn’t said much about the Mate 90 Pro yet, but the leaks aren’t waiting around. Fresh details about the phone’s Kirin 9035 chip just surfaced online, and if the numbers hold up, Huawei is pushing harder on its in-house silicon than most people expected.
According to Huawei Central, Weibo tipster @FixedFocus dropped a fresh batch of spec details on the Kirin 9035, the chip expected to power the Mate 90 Pro exclusively. That word, exclusively, matters. Huawei has been doubling down on keeping its best silicon for its own flagship devices, and the Kirin 9035 looks like a continuation of that strategy.
This is a big deal because of where Huawei is coming from. The company spent years rebuilding its chip program after U.S. sanctions cut off access to advanced manufacturing. The Kirin 9000s that came with the Mate 60 Pro turned heads because it showed SMIC could produce something competitive at 7nm. Now with the Kirin 9035, the question everyone is asking is whether Huawei managed to push the process node further or squeeze more performance out of what it already has.
The leaked specs point to meaningful improvements across the board. Here’s what the Kirin 9035 is reported to bring:
- An upgraded CPU configuration with stronger performance cores
- Improved NPU for AI-related tasks and on-device processing
- Better modem integration, likely with enhanced 5G support
- Efficiency gains over the previous Kirin generation
Huawei is clearly in no rush to officially tease the Mate 90 Pro. The company has been quiet, which is a bit unusual for a major flagship launch. But that silence hasn’t stopped the leaks from flowing, and honestly, the spec picture being painted looks solid.
For consumers outside China, the Mate 90 Pro might feel like a distant product. But for the broader smartphone chip industry, every Kirin 9035 detail that surfaces is a signal about how far China’s domestic chip ambitions have come. And that’s a story worth watching closely, regardless of whether you plan to buy one.