Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged on CNBC that the company has largely conceded China's AI chip market to Huawei. The admission highlights the profound impact of US export restrictions.
Huang described Huawei as a formidable technology company and pointed to its record year. Nvidia's market share in China's high-end AI chip sector dropped from near-total dominance in 2024 to near zero.
Huawei is targeting shipments of 750,000 AI chips by 2026. Its Ascend 950PR model is projected to capture 60% of China's domestic AI accelerator demand.
Huang also warned about Chinese AI models like DeepSeek becoming optimized for Huawei's architecture. Once software stacks are built around Huawei, switching to Nvidia demands complete re-engineering.