Nvidia’s hold on China’s AI accelerator market is narrowing. The company shipped 678,000 accelerators into the country between January and June, down 44 per cent from a year earlier, leaving it with 34 per cent of data-centre AI chip shipments, according to IDC data reported by Reuters.
Huawei is the beneficiary. The company shipped 572,000 chips in the same period, up from just over 300,000 a year earlier, lifting its share to 28 per cent. The chips train models and run inference.
Behind those two, a domestic field is filling out. Alibaba’s T-Head accounted for 7 per cent of shipments, followed by Cambricon at 5 per cent, Kunlunxin at 4 per cent and Hygon at 3 per cent. Nine of the 11 Chinese suppliers IDC tracks increased shipments during the half.
The trend reflects the combined effect of export restrictions and domestic substitution policy. Each round of controls has tightened what Nvidia can sell into China, and Chinese buyers have responded by qualifying local alternatives faster than they otherwise would have.
Nvidia’s absolute volume remains substantial, and it still sells more AI accelerators into China than any single competitor. But a 44 per cent year-on-year decline in a market the company once dominated is a meaningful shift in the competitive map.
The question for the next couple of quarters is whether Huawei’s climb continues at the same rate, or whether manufacturing constraints cap its expansion.
