Indeed, Chinese developers are increasingly relying on local hardware, with companies like Huawei, Cambricon, Moore Threads, and MetaX advancing both silicon and software. In software — the so-called CUDA moat in particular — remains the main frontier of American AI technology in China that local companies have yet to conquer.
Ultimately, Huang warns that fear-driven narratives and export controls could slow the deployment of AI more broadly as China and other regions embrace it more aggressively as an economic tool. Long-term leadership will depend less on restricting global rivals and more on ensuring that the American AI ecosystem dominates globally, according to Huang.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom\u2019s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-22/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Anton Shilov Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Zaranthos He's full of crap. Nvidia still makes a fortune selling to China indirectly. He's just big mad that they're not making even more and that gamers aren't paying even higher prices for a GPU. Some estimates are that a billion dollars worth of Nvidia chips are being smuggled into China per quarter as private demand for the fastest AI compute is very high. There are so many games being played here. China pretending they don't need the rest of the worlds chips while their own universities and industry desperately want them. The US government banning the sale of them to China, then approving the sale of the less power versions. There isn't enough fab capacity right now to supply world demand so stop crying about lost profits when you can't even supply enough chips as it is. If things were affordable I'd probably upgrade to take advantage of EXPO 1.2 but even RAM kit prices are absurd right now. I won't even buy Nvidia cards because the prices are offensive. Reply
jp7189 According to the number I can find, US deployed 53GW additional energy generation in 2025; China 540GW. Plus in the US every new datacenter is embattled with lawsuits and public opposition. That basically means Nvidia's market is drying up in the US with China being the only place for new mass deployments.. unless of course orbital datacenters really takeoff (no pun intended). Reply
Arkitekt78 This guy… he's a charlatan. Plain and simple. Fleecing the world of its money until the bubble bursts, at which point, right before, he'll find himself some private island somewhere and disappear. And anyone that even thinks of slowing his cash flow, he denigrates publicly. These are the worst kinds of people. Reply
-Fran- surprisedpikachuface.jpg youdontsay.jpg Etc, etc… Who would have thought a "USA first" policy on hardware saying you "need to get them addicted to your tech" would cause such a reaction from, what the USA govt and big amount of the populate considers, an antagonistic state would do. Who would have thought… Regards. Reply
ET3D Zaranthos said: Some estimates are that a billion dollars worth of Nvidia chips are being smuggled into China per quarter Even if true, that's 25% of what NVIDIA sold directly to China in 2024, according to what I could find (and smuggling probably still happened then). That's still a very significant drop. Reply
redgarl He is only pumping the stock until the news that restrictions are lifted. Anyway, we all know that Chinese are smuggling enough GPUs to still buy Nvidia product for AI. The CCP can say whatever but behind closed doors, they know HUAWEI is not even competitive. Reply
rluker5 Jensen is only thinking of China. What will the gov do without the latest models of big brother tech? How will the average citizen ask chatgpt what they should make for dinner or how to deal with all of their piles of money and get the answer a fraction of a second faster than they do now? What about the mostly realistic cat in sweater memes or YouTube shorts? This US export policy is costing them dearly. Reply
nookoool Doesn't China/Chinese companies just often over buy during times of tension just in case they get banned? Likely they have just been working thru old inventory this year + also aquiring newer gear from local firms. Maybe they are waiting for Trumps visit so they can announce new trade deals etc. Reply
freedomnow Most people have no understanding of AI or the global economy. This has nothing to do with money but dominance and control. Because of the non forward looking policies China has developed alternative infrastructure that is far less efficient. China simply creates more power plants to accommodate the inefficiency and the end results that the US are afraid of are the same. If the policy under the previous administration did not exist then China would have more of a dependency of Nvidia platform making it more painful to switch. This dependency would create a need for continued investment and would not have triggered China attacking the problem by creating more power plants polluting our environment. The generative AI bag left years ago and the US can do nothing to stop China but instead this policy has made China stronger. They already have a lot more power plants and as they improve the efficiency of their platform they will be in a greater position then the US. Compute is a commodity and they will be able to out create everyone. Europe is not even in the rearview mirror and the US due to environmental regulations cannot compete with them with power. Nvidia will continue to win with efficiency but what does it matter if we don't have the power to run these. Thank you Biden and Trump and other useful idiots for allowing this to happen faster. Reply
short-n-round Backfired for what, his pocketbook? No one was ever going to stop China – best you could do was slow term down until they successfully copied the tech. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/jensen-says-nvidia-now-has-zero-percent-market-share-in-china-says-us-export-policy-has-already-largely-backfired#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Japan is deploying ultra-cheap cardboard drones built for swarm warfare and expendable combat missions — $2,000 expendable combat drones cost less than some gam
- A suspected YouTube interface bug spikes RAM usage above 7 gigabytes, users report severe lag and frozen tabs — bug might be trapping browsers in an endless lay
- Press Start on April: GeForce NOW Brings 10 Games to the Cloud
- Retailer selling broken RTX 5090 GPUs for as low as $1,760 — GPUs were damaged during transport, but include all components on the PCB
- New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.