Huawei founder told Xi China's concerns about lack of chips have eased, state media says

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Huawei's founder told Xi Jinping at a meeting the Chinese president held with private sector entrepreneurs that concerns China had about a lack of homegrown chips or operating systems had eased, Chinese state media reported.

The People's Daily on Friday published an article summarising what major Chinese company founders including Huawei's Ren Zhengfei, electric vehicle giant BYD's Wang Chuanfu and electronics maker turned automaker Xiaomi's Lei Jun spoke to Xi about on Monday.

Public discussion of the meeting, where six founders were given time to address Xi while the likes of DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng and Alibaba's Jack Ma looked on, has been highly controlled. Previously, state media only released Xi's remarks and not details of what the founders said.

Ren told Xi that the worries China had about a "lack of core and soul" had eased and said "I firmly believe a greater China will rise faster," the People's Daily reported.

The phrase "lack of core and soul" dates back to 1999 when a former China technology minister made that comment about the country's information industry, with "core" referring to semiconductors and "soul" referring to operating systems.

Huawei has been one of the key forces behind Xi's goal for the country to become more self-sufficient, overcoming U.S. sanctions to produce its own advanced chips and an operating system.

During the meeting, BYD's Wang spoke about how the country's EV industry had started from scratch and "showed an impressive report card" while Xiaomi's Lei told Xi that even if the international situation changed, with Xi's leadership there was "nothing that cannot be overcome", the People's Daily also said.

The other three entrepreneurs who spoke were from chip firm Will Semiconductor, humanoid robot maker Unitree and China's largest feed maker New Hope Group, according to the People's Daily.

(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Jamie Freed)