Chinese Tech Giants Order $35B in Nvidia Chips Despite Washington's Export Restrictions
Export controls were supposed to push Nvidia out of China's AI chip market. Washington blocked its most advanced data-center chips, and Nvidia's CEO said the company's market share had fallen to virtually zero.
Yet ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent have just placed more than $35B in orders for a less powerful chip that Chinese buyers barely wanted last year.
The chip they can still buy
The Chinese tech giants ordered more than 3M RTX PRO 5500 cards, according to two people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. The cards are priced at about $11.4K each, putting the combined sticker price above $35B.
The RTX PRO 5500 is built for professional workstations rather than the huge server clusters that train frontier AI models. It's still among the most powerful Nvidia hardware Chinese buyers can legally get.
What Nvidia Can Still Sell to China
Nvidia's AI chips and where each stands under US export rules. The RTX PRO 5500 is the strongest card Chinese buyers can order freely, which is why the $35B in orders landed there.
| Chip | Built for | Can China buy it? |
|---|---|---|
| B300 (Blackwell) | Training AI in large data centers | No, banned |
| H200 (Hopper) | Training AI in large data centers | Only with a license, case by case |
| RTX PRO 5500 | Professional workstations, AI inference | Yes, about $11.4K per card |
| RTX 6000D | Professional workstations | Discontinued; China price has doubled |
Inference needs less muscle
Chinese buyers mainly want the cards for AI inference, the step where a finished model answers a user's question.
Inference generally burns less computing power than training a model on enormous datasets. A weaker card does the job if you buy enough of them.
That logic was a harder sell last year. Nvidia launched the similar RTX 6000D as an export-compliant option, and major Chinese firms largely passed, calling it overpriced for what it delivered.
Buyers were waiting for Washington to loosen up. It didn't, compute stayed scarce, and the RTX 6000D has since been discontinued with its China price doubling.
Nvidia can't fill every order
Nvidia has told customers it cannot guarantee it can fill the orders, because Chinese demand runs far ahead of planned output.
Partners were warned they might receive only 5% to 10% of what they asked for.
Total Chinese orders have passed 6M cards, while Nvidia has indicated it can make no more than 3M globally in 2027.
China Ordered Twice What Nvidia Can Build
RTX PRO 5500 cards, in millions. Orders from Chinese buyers already exceed what Nvidia has indicated it can make for the whole world in 2027, so most will go unfilled.
Bar chart. Cards (millions). All orders from China: Cards (millions) 6. ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent: Cards (millions) 3. Nvidia max global output, 2027: Cards (millions) 3.
Capacity is the squeeze. From 2027, Nvidia is expected to point much of its Taiwan Semiconductor capacity at Rubin, its next data-center platform, leaving less room for workstation cards.
Early samples are due in December, with commercial deliveries starting in the first quarter of 2027.
What the order book actually proves
Nvidia's China market didn't disappear so much as move down a product tier. Demand for the stripped-down card shows a sizeable buyer base still exists below the restricted line.
The company frames the situation as a two-sided squeeze, pointing to restrictions from both governments.
"US firms continue to be restricted by a combination of outdated US export controls, which cover gaming products released nearly a half a decade ago, and China's own limit on US imports."
Spokesperson, Nvidia
Meanwhile, the curbs keep pushing Chinese firms toward domestic suppliers. Huawei has gained share, though local chipmakers still trail leading American products, partly because separate rules limit their access to advanced manufacturing equipment.
Smaller buyers are getting in line too. Shenzhen-listed Tansun Technology disclosed an agreement on Oct. 13 to buy 20K RTX PRO 5500 cards from an unnamed counterparty, warning that shortages could cut the volume it actually receives.
