IDC: Nvidia’s share of China’s AI data-center chips fell to 34% in H1 2026
Huawei reached 28%
Partly confirmed
The takeaway
IDC data reported by Reuters on Oct 13, 2026 show Nvidia shipped 678,000 data-center AI chips in China in January to June 2026, down 44% from a year earlier, for a 34% market share.
Status
- Claim
Partly confirmed
- Our reporting
- Medium confidence
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 13 October 2026
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Key facts
- Nvidia, H1 2026: 678,000 chips shipped in China, -44% year over year; share 34% (IDC via Reuters)
- Huawei, H1 2026: 572,000 chips, share 28%; up from ‘more than 300,000’ in H1 2025
- GPU shipments fell 26% to 991,000 units; non-GPU accelerators rose nearly 80% to 1.016 million and took the volume lead
- Huawei, Alibaba’s T-Head, Baidu’s Kunlunxin and Cambricon made up 95% of the non-GPU segment; Kunlunxin, Cambricon and Hygon gained share
- Implied total market: about 2.0 million accelerators in the half (sum of the two segments; our arithmetic)
- Comparison: for full-year 2025 IDC had Nvidia at about 2.2 million cards and 55% of roughly 4 million, Chinese vendors at 41%, Huawei at about 812,000 (Reuters, April 1, 2026)
- Causes named: US export controls limit what Nvidia can sell, and China often requires import approvals even for compliant parts
What happened
Reuters reported new figures from the research firm IDC on China’s market for AI accelerators used in data centers. In the first half of 2026 Nvidia’s shipments fell by 44% and its share dropped to 34%, from 55% for the whole of 2025. Huawei nearly doubled its shipments and now stands six points behind. The fastest-growing part of the market is non-GPU accelerators, where four Chinese suppliers hold 95%.
Why it matters
China was once a market Nvidia dominated with over 90%. The IDC numbers show that export controls and Beijing’s own import approvals have moved a majority of the volume to domestic chips within about 18 months. Unit counts say nothing about performance per chip, so Nvidia’s share of computing power may differ from its share of units.
Written from Finimize’s summary of the Reuters report and Techmeme’s headline; reuters.com blocks automated access. The shares of T-Head, Kunlunxin, Cambricon and Hygon were cut off in the readable copy.
Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 3 press
Press
- Reuters: Nvidia’s China AI-chip share falls as Huawei closes gap, report findsreuters.com, press
- Finimize: Nvidia loses ground in China’s AI chip market (summary of the Reuters report)finimize.com, press
- Reuters via Yahoo Finance: Chinese chipmakers claim nearly half of local market as Nvidia’s lead shrinks (IDC, 2025 data)finance.yahoo.com, press
Changes
- Filed (morning; live Techmeme)