When He Tingbo was put in charge of Huawei's chip development in 2003, the young engineer was handed an annual budget of $400 million and a mandate that would eventually put her at the centre of China's most consequential technology effort.
More than two decades later, He, often described in Chinese technology circles as Huawei's "chip queen", has become one of the company's most important executives and a symbol of China's determination to survive U.S. sanctions and build a self-reliant semiconductor business.
