---
id: "2026-10-27-epoch-ai-chip-imports-us-72-percent"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-27-epoch-ai-chip-imports-us-72-percent/"
as_of: "2026-11-15T00:33:00+01:00"
date: "2026-10-27"
date_precision: day
category: hardware-compute
importance: 2
confidence: medium
status: [Partly confirmed]
sources: 2
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-29"
---

As of: 2026-11-15 00:33 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-27-epoch-ai-chip-imports-us-72-percent/

# Epoch AI's chip-imports data

Full title: 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

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. By its estimate, 72% of the world's AI compute acquired since 2022 is in the US and about 10% in China, and the US share of new compute rose from about 60% a year in 2022-2024 to 72% in 2025 and 78% in the first half of 2026.

## 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.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 180 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 119 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): 210 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 149 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [Epoch AI: Data on AI chip imports](https://epoch.ai/data/ai-chip-imports) (epoch.ai, official)
2. [Epoch AI on X: 72% of the world's AI compute has ended up in the US (Oct 27)](https://x.com/EpochAIResearch/status/2115186242459767006) (x.com, official)

## Changes

- 2026-10-29 (filed): Created (news agent)

## Related

- 2026-10-28: [Malaysia seizes 30 more AI-chip servers (~$12M) at Kuala Lumpur airport, says a syndicate is using it as a transit point](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-28-malaysia-seizes-ai-servers-klia-transit-syndicate/index.md)
- 2026-10-02: [Epoch AI: chips shipped through 2027 could run 33–171 million frontier-model agents at once](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-02-epoch-ai-agent-population-estimate/index.md)
- Archived: 1 post, listed in https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-27-epoch-ai-chip-imports-us-72-percent/index.json