Nvidia’s share of the Chinese data-center artificial intelligence chip market fell to 34% during the first half of 2026, according to a report from market research firm IDC. The decline occurred as U.S. export restrictions limited Nvidia's product offerings and Chinese domestic competitors, led by Huawei, increased their market presence.
The U.S. government has restricted China’s access to Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips. In response, Beijing has promoted domestic alternatives and required Chinese companies to seek approval before importing Nvidia chips that comply with U.S. regulations.
Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators—specialized chips for training and running AI models—between January and June 2026, representing a 44% decrease from the previous year. During the same period, Huawei shipped 572,000 units, an increase from more than 300,000 a year earlier, securing a 28% market share. Other Chinese firms, including Alibaba’s T-Head (7%), Cambricon (5%), Baidu’s Kunlunxin (4%), and Hygon (3%), also captured portions of the market. Total shipments for the first half of 2026 reached 2.008 million units.
For Chinese organizations, the impact is visible in the transition to non-GPU accelerators, which are designed for specific tasks like running already-trained models. These non-GPU units rose nearly 80% to 1.016 million units, surpassing GPUs by volume. Chinese suppliers, including Huawei and T-Head, now account for a large portion of this growing non-GPU segment. Users in China, particularly in the government and internet sectors, will notice a shift toward these domestic systems as IDC reports that competition is moving away from the performance of individual chips toward system-level capabilities within larger computing clusters.
As domestic shipments increase—with nine of the 11 Chinese chipmakers tracked by IDC growing year-over-year—Nvidia’s future role in the region remains uncertain. While IDC noted that cutting-edge chips like the B200 and B300 are barred from export, it did not specify which products made up Nvidia's 34% share or if smuggled units were counted. IDC forecasts a 9% drop in overall GPU shipments for the full year. Nvidia did not provide a comment on the report's findings.