Nvidia’s once absolute dominance in one of its most important overseas markets is now being eroded on a massive scale. Chinese makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips and graphics processing units (GPUs) reportedly captured nearly 41 percent of the country’s AI accelerator server market last year.
This historic shift is driven by Beijing’s growing caution over reliance on foreign chips, prompting government agencies and companies to aggressively switch to domestic alternatives after successive US export controls cut China off from Nvidia’s most advanced products.
According to Reuters (01/04/2026), citing IDC data reviewed by the news agency, total shipments of AI accelerator cards from Nvidia, AMD and Chinese chipmakers reached around 4 million units in China in 2025.
Despite suffering a significant setback in a market it once dominated, US chipmaker Nvidia still retained the top position with shipments of around 2.2 million cards, giving it a 55 percent market share. AMD recorded a more modest presence, shipping around 160,000 cards for a 4 percent share.
Meanwhile, Chinese vendors collectively shipped 1.65 million cards, accounting for 41 percent of the market. The figure underscores how aggressively domestic players have moved to fill the gap created by tightened US export controls.
Huawei Technologies emerged as the clear leader among Chinese vendors, shipping around 812,000 AI chips, nearly half of all domestic shipments. Alibaba’s chip design unit, T‑Head, ranked second with around 265,000 cards.
Baidu’s Kunlunxin and Cambricon each shipped around 116,000 cards, placing them jointly in third place among local vendors. Other players such as Hygon, and GPU startups MetaX and Iluvatar CoreX, contributed 5 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent respectively of Chinese vendor shipments.
This market shift has been further accelerated by central government initiatives that launched a new wave of AI infrastructure spending in 2025. The policy prompted local governments to speed up the construction of intelligent computing centres across various provinces, many of which carried an implicit directive to strictly “buy Chinese”. (SF/LM)
Originally written by: Lisa Monica, Sahrudin Fiqri M
Source: IDN Financials
Published on: 3 April 2026
Link to original article: Nvidia slips as Chinese chips take 41% of AI market
