Nvidia held 34% of China’s data-center AI chip market in the first half of 2026, while Huawei reached 28% as U.S. Export controls constrained Nvidia’s supply and Chinese manufacturers expanded shipments. Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators from January through June, down 44% from a year earlier, while Huawei shipped 572,000, up from more than 300,000 a year earlier.
Graphics-processing-unit shipments fell 26% to 991,000 as the supply of products approved for mainland China remained limited. The figures do not identify which Nvidia products were counted, and they do not establish how many restricted chips may have entered China through unofficial channels.
Domestic suppliers captured the remaining market in smaller shares. Alibaba’s T-Head held 7%, Cambricon had 5%, Baidu’s Kunlunxin had 4% and Hygon had 3%; nine of the 11 Chinese chipmakers tracked increased shipments from a year earlier. The shift follows China’s push toward domestically designed semiconductors after U.S. Restrictions limited access to advanced chips and chipmaking equipment.
Washington revised its licensing policy in January to allow case-by-case review of applications for Nvidia’s H200, AMD’s MI325X and similar chips, subject to security, customer-screening and supply requirements. That policy change did not eliminate the broader restrictions on Nvidia’s most advanced products, including the B200 and B300, which remain barred from export to China.
The market change has increased pressure on Nvidia’s China strategy. Chief Executive Jensen Huang has argued that export curbs are surrendering a Chinese AI-chip market he has valued at about $50 billion to Huawei, while also acknowledging that Nvidia’s position has weakened sharply from the roughly 95% share it held before the controls.