- Nvidia’s share of China’s data-center AI accelerator market dropped to 34% in the first half of 2026, with shipments down 44% year on year, while Huawei nearly doubled its shipments to reach 28%, according to IDC data reported by Reuters.
- US export controls and Beijing’s push for domestic chips are reshaping the market, which is also shifting from GPUs toward purpose-built non-GPU accelerators.
- For Nvidia, it points to a shrinking foothold in a market Jensen Huang values at $50 billion.
Nvidia’s share of China’s data-center AI chip market dropped to 34% in the first half of 2026 as US export controls cut its shipments by 44%, while Huawei’s shipments nearly doubled, according to IDC data reported by Reuters.
Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators in China between January and June, down 44% from the same period in 2025, according to IDC data cited by Reuters.
Huawei, by contrast, increased shipments from about 300,000 units to 572,000 over the same period, lifting its market share to 28% and narrowing Nvidia’s lead to six percentage points.
Beyond Huawei, Other Chinese chipmakers are part of the market. Alibaba’s chip-design arm T-Head holds 7% of the market, followed by Cambricon at 5%, Baidu’s Kunlunxin at 4% and Hygon at 3%. IDC surveyed 11 Chinese chipmakers, nine of which increased shipments over the past year.
Why Nvidia lost ground
US restrictions on chips have stopped Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI chips to China, with IDC directly linking the company’s declining market share to these limitations.
Beijing is also encouraging the use of domestic chips, while requiring Chinese firms to obtain approval before importing Nvidia processors that meet US export rules. Chinese buyers have also largely shunned the limited range of Nvidia chips approved for sale by Washington.
The market is moving past GPUs
China shipped about 2.008 million AI accelerators in the first half of the year, but the constitution of the mix has shifted. GPU shipments fell 26% to 991,000 units, while shipments of non-GPU accelerators, designed for specific AI workloads such as inference, surged about 80% to roughly 1.016 million.
Four Chinese companies, Huawei, T-Head, Kunlunxin and Cambricon, hold 95% of the non-GPU segment, according to IDC, with their customers mostly being government agencies, internet companies and large telecom operators.
IDC forecasts GPU shipments in China will decline 9% for the full year, even though total accelerator shipments have gone up by 19%, driven by demand for non-GPU chips. The firm claims competition is increasingly shifting from individual chip performance to how efficiently large clusters of interconnected chips operate as a single system.
If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.
Opeyemi Olanrewaju
Opeyemi specializes in creating and refining high-quality content focused on cryptocurrency, global financial markets and the economy. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with an MBBS degree. He has worked as Editor-in-Chief for his College’s editorial publication and previously at CFA. For over six years, he has helped safeguard uniqueness as news editor at Cryptopolitan.
