Nvidia loses ground in China as Huawei gains AI chip share

Nvidia’s hold on China’s AI-chip market has weakened sharply as Huawei gained ground, with Bernstein putting Nvidia and Huawei each at about 40% of the market in 2025. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, acknowledged the reversal and said the company once controlled about 95% of the market in China before export controls began to bite.

The loss of share came after Washington’s restrictions on advanced technology initially slowed sales of Nvidia’s high-end H200 chips, then Chinese policymakers moved to steer buyers toward domestic products. Huang’s visibility in China has remained unusually high, including the crowds that followed him in Beijing during President Donald Trump’s May summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Since the United States began limiting access to advanced chips and chipmaking equipment, Chinese companies have raced to build a domestic semiconductor stack, while local AI firms such as DeepSeek have pushed for better performance at lower cost. That has given Huawei a clearer path to serve the home market and left Nvidia more exposed to the restrictions. By the time Nvidia won a reprieve on H200 sales, Beijing had already started favoring local alternatives, and Huawei had moved into the space Nvidia once dominated.