Epoch AI’s chip-imports data
72% of the world’s AI compute since 2022 went to the US, about 10% to China; US share of new compute 78% in H1 2026
Partly confirmed
The takeaway
On Oct 27, 2026 Epoch AI published an AI Chip Imports explorer that estimates where AI chips end up from national customs records and domestic production.
Status
- Claim
Partly confirmed
- Our reporting
- Medium confidence
- Importance
- 2 of 5
- Last verified
- 29 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra180 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5119 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen210 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7149 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 119 days before it.
Key facts
- Method (Epoch): customs statistics from over a dozen national sources; the AI-attributable slice of server and GPU-board imports above a non-AI 2021 baseline; re-exports netted out so each chip counts once in its final country; breakdowns by chip designer and type (H100-equivalents, units, trade value); data under CC BY
- Findings (@EpochAIResearch, Oct 27, ~75k views): since 2022, 72% of AI compute in the US, ~10% in China; US share of new compute ~60% a year 2022-2024, 72% in 2025, 78% in H1 2026
- Part of Epoch’s AI chip supply-chain project, alongside data on chip components, sales, owners and users
- Estimates, not inventories: the page combines customs records with domestic production data; smuggled hardware does not appear in customs records (our caveat; see the Malaysia seizures entry)
What happened
Epoch AI added a country-level estimate of AI chip deployment built from public trade data to its chip supply-chain datasets.
Why it matters
It quantifies how concentrated frontier compute has become in one country, and that the concentration is still increasing, which underlies both US export-control policy and other countries’ sovereign-compute plans.
Sources
2 sources from 2 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
2 sources: 2 primary
Primary
- Epoch AI: Data on AI chip importsepoch.ai, official
- Epoch AI on X: 72% of the world’s AI compute has ended up in the US (Oct 27)x.com, official
Changes
- Filed (news agent)