- Chinese chip vendors shipped 1.65 million AI accelerator cards in 2025, capturing nearly 41 percent of the domestic market, according to an IDC report cited by Reuters.
- Nvidia remains the market leader with approximately 2.2 million cards shipped and 55 percent market share, but is losing ground rapidly.
- Huawei leads the domestic pack with about 812,000 chips, followed by Alibaba’s T-Head at 265,000 cards.
- The shift is driven by tightened US export controls and Beijing’s push for companies to adopt domestic chips.
What Happened
Chinese chip manufacturers captured nearly 41 percent of China’s AI accelerator server market in 2025, according to an IDC report seen by Reuters and reported by The Decoder on April 2, 2026. The total market saw approximately 4 million AI accelerator cards shipped in China during 2025. Chinese vendors collectively shipped about 1.65 million of those cards, while Nvidia shipped roughly 2.2 million, maintaining a 55 percent market share.
IDC, a global market research firm specializing in the technology industry, compiled the data. The report tracks the ongoing realignment of China’s AI hardware supply chain as US export restrictions force Chinese companies to develop and adopt domestic alternatives.
Why It Matters
Two years ago, Nvidia held a dominant share of China’s AI accelerator market. The 41 percent figure for domestic vendors represents a substantial shift, driven by two reinforcing forces: US export controls that restrict Nvidia’s ability to sell its most advanced chips to Chinese customers, and Beijing’s active encouragement for Chinese companies to switch to domestically produced hardware.
The trend has implications beyond China. If domestic chip vendors can deliver AI accelerators at sufficient scale and performance, it reduces the leverage that US export controls have over China’s AI development trajectory. The data suggests that while Nvidia’s export-compliant chips (such as the H20) still dominate, the gap is closing faster than many analysts expected.
Technical Details
Huawei leads China’s domestic chip vendors with approximately 812,000 units shipped, built around its Ascend series of AI accelerators. Alibaba’s chip design unit T-Head shipped 265,000 cards. Baidu’s Kunlunxin and Cambricon each shipped 116,000 units. AMD held just 4 percent of the overall Chinese AI accelerator market.
The total of 4 million AI accelerator cards shipped in China during 2025 reflects the massive scale of AI infrastructure buildout in the country. For context, this figure represents the cards installed in servers, which are the primary compute units for training and running large AI models. The IDC data does not break down performance comparisons between domestic and imported chips.
Who’s Affected
Nvidia faces continued market share erosion in one of the world’s largest AI hardware markets. Chinese AI companies including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance are the primary buyers making procurement decisions between domestic and imported chips. Huawei’s chip division benefits most directly, with its Ascend chips now established as the leading domestic alternative. AMD’s minimal 4 percent share suggests the company has struggled to capitalize on Nvidia’s export restrictions.
What’s Next
The US government is expected to review and potentially tighten export controls on AI chips later in 2026. If Nvidia’s market share continues to decline at the current rate, domestic vendors could approach parity within the next 12 to 18 months. Huawei is reportedly developing next-generation Ascend chips to narrow the performance gap with Nvidia’s latest architectures. The competitive dynamics will also be shaped by whether Chinese AI companies find that domestic chips can handle the most demanding training workloads or remain limited to inference and smaller-scale tasks.
