NVIDIA pulling out from China's AI market has boosted the share of domestic firms, with Huawei winning the biggest chunk.
Huawei's China Market Share in AI to Reach 60% as NVIDIA CEO Confirms Zero Chip Share in China After US Policy Shift
The US Government has moved to ban all leading-edge AI chip sales in China. NVIDIA, being the biggest name in the AI industry, has seen its share drop to zero after the policy shift, prompting an increased reliance on domestically produced chips in China.
Currently, the situation has prompted China's AI chipmakers to double down on production and fill in the gaps created by NVIDIA's departure in a significant way. While NVIDIA still has older chips for China, these aren't viable solutions anymore for emerging AI workflows such as Agentic AI. The entire AI economy now shifts to in-house solutions.
Huawei is the leading AI and datacenter chipmaker in China, and given these restrictions on NVIDIA GPUs, the company is all set to grab a 60% share in Chinese AI markets by the end of 2026. Previously, Huawei was the only brand that could've tackled NVIDIA in the cost/$ segment, and their roadmap, being robust as ever, makes them a formidable player, which, without any imminent competition, can become the single and most powerful AI entity in the country.
Huawei is set to capture the largest share of China’s AI chip market this year, with sales jumping by at least 60 per cent amid strong demand from Chinese companies seeking domestic alternatives to Nvidia.
via Financial Times
The current figures estimate that Huawei's AI chip revenue could hit $12 billion in 2026, based on current orders. The bulk of this revenue is made from orders of the Ascend 950PR chip, which entered mass production in March. The Ascend 950PR features support for MXFP4, a key instruction set that drives AI models such as DeepSeek V4, and features up to 2 PFLOPs of FP4 performance, along with 128 GB of locally produced HBM memory.
An updated version of the Ascend 950 lineup, called 950DT, is also expected to enter mass production in Q4 2026, featuring 144 GB of HBM memory. The company has the Ascend 960 planned for Q4 2027 and the Ascend 970 planned for Q4 2028. Each chip offers substantial updates in performance, new features & increased HBM memory.
Morgan Stanley forecasts China’s AI chip market will reach $67bn in 2030, with 86 per cent expected to be supplied by Chinese players. It estimates the market to be about $21bn this year from domestic suppliers.
via Financial Times
DeepSeek's recent V4 announcement saw both NVIDIA and Huawei offering Day-0 support, marking a huge win for the Chinese AI semiconductor markets. Huawei relies mostly on SIMC for its chip production, and the US is cracking down on advanced lithography machinery sales from ASML to China. Despite these blocks, China continues its AI infrastructure and software development at a steady pace.
News Source: Financial Times
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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