Nvidia held 34% of China’s data-centre AI-chip market in the first half of 2026, just six percentage points ahead of Huawei. The figures come from IDC data cited by Reuters.

Nvidia shipped 678,000 accelerators from January through June, down 44% from a year earlier. Huawei shipped 572,000 and captured 28% of the market.

Chinese suppliers gain ground

US export restrictions limit sales of Nvidia’s most powerful AI processors to China. Some permitted imports also require approval, Reuters reported. China is pushing to develop domestic alternatives.

IDC’s figures show the market shares of several other Chinese suppliers:

  • Alibaba chip-design unit T-Head: 7%.
  • Cambricon: 5%.
  • Baidu’s Kunlunxin: 4%.
  • Hygon: 3%.

Nine of the 11 Chinese chipmakers tracked by IDC increased shipments year over year.

Non-GPU chips edge past GPUs

The change is also in the type of hardware buyers received. China’s total AI-accelerator shipments reached 2.008 million in the first half of 2026.

  • Non-GPU chips: 1.016 million units, up nearly 80%.
  • GPUs: 991,000 units, down 26%.

Huawei, T-Head, Kunlunxin and Cambricon together accounted for 95% of the non-GPU segment. These chips include processors built for specific AI tasks, such as running trained models.

IDC said competition increasingly depends on how chips work together in larger computing systems, not only on the speed of an individual processor.

What the figures mean

The shipment data show Nvidia losing ground in a strategically important overseas market as Chinese suppliers gain share. They count units, not sales revenue, and IDC did not specify which Nvidia products made up its 34% share.

IDC projected that China’s total AI-accelerator shipments would grow 19% in 2026, even as GPU shipments fall 9%. That forecast points to a growing market with a changing mix of chips.

Nvidia remains the largest supplier in the figures, but its lead over Huawei has narrowed to six percentage points. Non-GPU chips have also moved ahead of GPUs by shipment volume.