TLDR
- Nvidia (NVDA) stock fell about 1% on Oct 13 after an IDC report showed its China AI chip share dropped to 34% in the first half of 2026.
- Nvidia’s China shipments fell 44% from a year earlier to 678,000 AI accelerators.
- Huawei shipped 572,000 chips, up from more than 300,000, and holds 28% of the market.
- Non-GPU accelerators now outnumber GPUs by volume in China, led by Huawei, T-Head, Kunlunxin and Cambricon.
- IDC expects China’s total accelerator shipments to grow 19% this year while GPU shipments fall 9%.
Nvidia (NVDA) stock was down 1.29% on Tuesday after an IDC report showed the company’s share of China’s data-centre AI chip market slipped to 34% in the first half of 2026. The data was seen by Reuters.
Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators in China from January through June. That is down 44% from the same period a year earlier.
Huawei is the main reason the gap is closing. The Chinese company shipped 572,000 accelerators, up from more than 300,000 a year ago, and now holds 28% of the market.
Other Chinese names also appear in the data. Alibaba’s chip-design unit T-Head held 7%, Cambricon had 5%, Baidu’s Kunlunxin had 4% and Hygon had 3%. Nine of the 11 Chinese chipmakers IDC tracks grew shipments year over year.
Shares of those Chinese peers moved lower on the day too. Alibaba (BABA) fell 0.53% and Baidu (BIDU) dropped 1.21%.
Export curbs and Beijing’s push
Washington has limited China’s access to Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips. That narrows the range of products the company can sell in the world’s second-largest economy.
Beijing has pushed the other way. It has promoted local alternatives and told Chinese firms to seek approval before importing Nvidia chips that meet US rules.
IDC did not say which Nvidia products make up the 34% figure. It also did not say whether the number includes the B200 and B300, which are barred from export to China but have reportedly been smuggled in.
Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment. CEO Jensen Huang has often criticized the export curbs, saying they hand China’s $50 billion AI chip market to Huawei.
GPUs lose ground to other chips
Total AI accelerator shipments in China reached 2.008 million units in the first half. GPUs, the chips most used to train AI models, fell 26% to 991,000 units because approved supply stayed limited.
Other AI accelerators rose nearly 80% to 1.016 million units. That pushed them past GPUs by volume for the first time in the data.
This group includes chips built for specific tasks, such as running models that are already trained. Huawei, T-Head, Kunlunxin and Cambricon make up 95% of the segment.
Government agencies, internet firms and telecom providers are buying them. IDC said competition is moving from single-chip speed to system-level skills, such as how well chips work together in a large cluster.
IDC expects China’s total accelerator shipments to rise 19% this year. It also forecasts GPU shipments to fall 9% over the same period.
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