Bernstein: Huawei Kirin 9050 Pro Narrows Gap with Apple Chips to About Three Years
nashnova research
Bernstein says Huawei's Kirin 9050 Pro has closed the performance gap with Apple's chips from roughly four years to three, but still trails Apple's latest chip by about 30% — and further gains hinge on breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing.
How much ground did the Kirin 9050 Pro actually make up?
Bernstein estimates the Kirin 9050 Pro is built on a process equivalent to a 7 nm node — a measure of how fine a chip's circuitry is; smaller means faster and more power-efficient.
In the Geekbench 6 multi-core benchmark, it outscored Apple's A17 Pro, launched in 2023 — the world's first mass-produced 3 nm smartphone chip.
This means → Huawei used a 7 nm process to beat Apple's 3 nm chip on multi-core, narrowing the generational gap from about four years to about three.
If the benchmark score is higher, why is it still behind?
Multi-core scores only measure how well multiple cores work together. On single-core performance — raw speed of one core — the Kirin 9050 Pro sits closer to TSMC's older 4 nm-class technology.
Compared with Apple's latest 2 nm A20 Pro, the Kirin 9050 Pro trails by roughly 30% in overall performance.
In plain terms = Huawei is closing fast in the team race, but in the individual sprint and overall capability, Apple still leads by a full stride.
Can Huawei keep closing the gap?
Bernstein's core view: whether the gap keeps shrinking depends on Huawei's progress in advanced process technology.
This reflects a key bottleneck — Huawei is constrained by manufacturing capability; 7 nm is its current mass-production ceiling. Going further requires a generational leap in fabrication.
This means → in the near term, "about three years" is likely Huawei's best result. Closing further won't come from design optimization — it will come from the ability to manufacture the chips themselves.
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