U.S. prosecutors in a criminal trial against China’s telecoms equipment maker Huawei described the company as a criminal enterprise and accused it of stealing trade secrets, violating sanctions on Iran and committing financial fraud. Huawei has denied the allegations in full.

At the trial that began in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, Justice Department prosecutor Taylor Stout said on Sept. 10 local time that Huawei extracted technology from U.S. companies over about 20 years and abused the financial system. Stout summed up the case for jurors as “theft, lies and cover-ups.” Prosecutors believe Huawei conspired to steal trade secrets from five U.S. companies, including Cisco router source code and T-Mobile mobile phone testing technology.

Huawei countered that prosecutors are linking different cases into a single organised conspiracy. Defence lawyer Brian Heberlig argued it was competition, not a conspiracy, and stressed that the actions of some employees should not be expanded into crimes by the company as a whole.

Another pillar of the case is Iran sanctions. Prosecutors said Huawei used Hong Kong company Skycom to supply embargoed U.S.-made equipment and technology to Iran and move related funds through the international financial network. The indictment also includes allegations of conspiracy under racketeering law, bank and wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Huawei is pleading not guilty to all charges.

The trial is also drawing attention because it began as Huawei has emerged as a key company leading China’s push for self-reliance in AI semiconductors. After the release of DeepSeek V4, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba sought to secure Huawei Ascend 950-series chips, and Huawei was reported to be planning shipments of about 750,000 950PR units this year.

The gap with Nvidia remains large. Epoch AI estimated Huawei’s AI compute output this year will be less than 4 percent of Nvidia’s and cited high-bandwidth memory (HBM) as a major bottleneck. The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has also previously warned in 2025 of export control violation risks involving the Ascend 910B, 910C and 910D. As the courtroom battle intersects with U.S.-China competition in AI semiconductors, attention is focused on whether the verdict will affect Huawei’s global business.