Huawei HarmonyOS Excluded from China's Government Desktop System Procurement List
Alina Collins
China's central procurement agency named three desktop operating systems for government use — Uniontech, Fangde, and Kylin. Huawei's HarmonyOS was excluded for failing to support all five required CPU architectures, not over security concerns.
Who made the list, and why isn't HarmonyOS on it?
Three systems won slots: Uniontech Desktop OS V20, Fangde Desktop OS V3.1, and Kylin Desktop OS V10. Each license is capped at ¥515.
The framework covers central agencies and procurement centers in Beijing, Anhui, Yunnan, and other provinces, running through June 30, 2027.
HarmonyOS was not rejected on security grounds. The barrier is multi-CPU architecture compatibility — procurement rules require a single codebase to run on ARM, LoongArch, MIPS, SW64, and X86. HarmonyOS currently supports only ARM.
It passed security certification — so why was it still shut out?
In January 2026, HarmonyOS V1.0 earned a Level 2 security-trust certification, the only desktop OS at that tier; Uniontech V25 earned Level 1. This means → on security, HarmonyOS actually leads its rivals.
But this procurement round exempted the security-trust test; all other starred technical criteria still had to be met. In plain terms = security certification is the entrance ticket, not the winning bid — multi-architecture support is the real gate this round.
Huawei's two commercial HarmonyOS PCs — the HM740 and HM940 — both run the ARM-based Kirin X90 processor. Desktop HarmonyOS has not yet been ported to the other four platforms.
Why does the government insist on five architectures?
The policy logic: prevent government desktops from being locked into a single CPU architecture or a single vendor's hardware roadmap.
This reflects the core principle of China's Xinchuang strategy — IT Application Innovation, a national program to replace imported technology dependencies with domestic alternatives — keeping multiple technical paths open so no single supplier becomes a systemic dependency for the public sector.
In plain terms = the government does not want all its eggs in one basket, even if that basket belongs to Huawei.
Does HarmonyOS still have a path in?
Huawei PCs already ship into the Xinchuang channel, typically pre-loaded with Kylin V10 or Uniontech UOS V20 — the hardware sells, but the OS is not yet Huawei's own.
In December 2025, Huawei released a Professional Edition of the HarmonyOS PC operating system (built on HarmonyOS 6); an Enterprise Edition entered beta at the same time, both targeting government and corporate clients.
First Voice Research Institute forecasts China's Xinchuang market at ¥2.66 trillion in 2026, up 26.82% year-on-year. This means → the market is large enough that if HarmonyOS clears the multi-architecture bar, the desktop OS landscape could shift from a Kylin–Uniontech duopoly to a three-way race.
The critical checkpoint: whether HarmonyOS can complete five-architecture porting before the next procurement cycle opens.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.