A new Windows alternative could launch on PCs later this year

By Willow Roberts Published July 17, 2024

After a rough few years in the U.S., Huawei has turned to developing its own operating system for PCs — and it may finally be arriving later this year.

HarmonyOS, as it’s called, has already been in use on smart devices like Huawei wearables and smartphones, but now a version of it may finally land on PCs in the form of HarmonyOS Next.

The rumor comes from a post on X that implies HarmonyOS Next may be launching later this year based on some imagery on Huawei’s developer website. The images show some different interfaces, including a Mac-like dock and widgets.

The increasing appearance of HarmonyOS PC version UI layouts on Huawei's developer website suggests that HarmonyOS Next for PC is definitely set to launch in Q4 this year. pic.twitter.com/oEmRAsN0CC

— jasonwill (@jasonwill101) July 16, 2024

After the U.S. blocked Huawei’s access to the Android and Windows operating systems, Huawei started developing its own OS, focusing on achieving a level of flexibility that would allow developers to make an app once and be able to distribute it across multiple product and device types. The smart device and smartphone version of HarmonyOS is largely based on the open-source version of Android (AOSP) and uses the Linux kernel.

The PC version currently in development — HarmonyOS Next — however, is said to be Android-free and uses its own microkernel instead of Linux or Unix. This means it doesn’t use Android code and can’t run Android apps, instead only supporting apps in its own native format.

Despite this framing, Huawei’s microkernel appears to have Linux binary compatibility and reuses Linux drivers using driver containers — meaning it’s likely largely based on Linux. It isn’t an open-source project though, so we don’t know for sure how much of the Linux kernel is being used or what kind of changes have been made. Creating a kernel from scratch would typically take many years of work, so it makes sense that Huawei would be working with some kind of existing architecture.

It might be slightly problematic, however, considering China is planning for HarmonyOS to be its “national operating system” as it ends its reliance on U.S. technology. But, forgetting the politics for a second, HarmonyOS has been growing incredibly fast within China over the past few years. At the start of 2024, it officially overtook Apple’s iOS as the second bestselling mobile OS in China. Huawei also created an open-source version of the OS, OpenHarmony, which is now controlled by a nonprofit called the OpenAtom Foundation.

This is all happening on a strictly national level, though — no smartphones or smart device products outside of China ship with HarmonyOS. Once HarmonyOS Next starts shipping with Huawei products, hopefully during last quarter of this year, it will also likely stay within the Chinese market.

But it won’t stay that way forever — executives at the Huawei Analyst Summit in April openly discussed their plans to start pushing the OS out to other parts of the world once they think it’s ready.