Chinese technology companies are attempting to secure more than $35 billion of Nvidia hardware as U.S. export restrictions reshape — but have not eliminated — China’s demand for American AI chips.
ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have collectively ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards, according to Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter.
At an estimated price of approximately $11,400 per card, the orders carry a combined sticker value exceeding $35 billion.
The scale of demand could exceed Nvidia’s ability to supply it.
Nvidia has told customers and partners that it cannot guarantee all orders will be filled because demand from Chinese technology companies substantially exceeds planned production.
Total orders from Chinese customers have surpassed 6 million units, while Nvidia is expected to produce no more than roughly 3 million RTX PRO 5500 cards globally during 2027.
The RTX PRO 5500 occupies an unusual position created by U.S. export restrictions.
It is a workstation graphics processor designed for powerful professional computers rather than the large data-center clusters that use Nvidia’s most advanced AI accelerators.
Restrictions on more powerful processors have pushed Chinese companies toward Nvidia hardware that remains legally available even when it provides less computing performance than the company’s leading data-center products.
The orders therefore reveal an important consequence of U.S. semiconductor controls.
Restrictions are encouraging China’s largest technology companies to pursue enormous quantities of permitted Nvidia hardware while simultaneously accelerating development of domestic alternatives.
Alibaba, Huawei and other Chinese companies are investing heavily in their own processors, but demand for Nvidia hardware remains substantial.
For Nvidia, the commercial opportunity is unusually large but constrained by manufacturing capacity and regulation.
For China, the orders demonstrate that access to AI computing remains a strategic bottleneck even as domestic semiconductor development accelerates.
The next question is how much of the enormous order book Nvidia can actually deliver and whether U.S. authorities modify export rules as Chinese demand shifts toward permitted workstation-class processors.
