Chips: the US lead is widening in quantity

How much compute goes to China

Units are H100 equivalents: how many Nvidia H100s would give the same compute. Epoch AI estimates from company results and reports; medians of a range. Chips smuggled into China and Chinese firms renting compute abroad are not counted, so China's true share is somewhat higher. Huawei is counted from 2024.

Source: Epoch AI (chip sales)

One chip against one chip, and the power bill

This is where the two bottlenecks meet. A weaker chip can still train a big model if you use more of them and more power, which is exactly Huawei's approach. China can afford the extra electricity; the US cannot easily. The largest US site holds about 9x the compute of China largest.

Source: Epoch AI (chip sales) / Epoch AI (data centres)

Nvidia and the Chinese market

Nvidia once had about 95% of China high-end AI chip market. In the fiscal year to Jan 2026, China was 9.1% of its revenue, and its outlook assumes no data-centre sales to China. The H200 was licensed in 2026, but Beijing has held purchases down (reportedly under 200,000 chips, training only) to protect domestic makers. In the Nvidia chip count above, the H200 has not yet appeared for China.

Source: NVIDIA 10-K / TrendForce

Export controls and Beijing's response

1. 27 Sep 2026ChipsChina

   China's industry ministry reportedly tells ByteDance, Alibaba and others it intends to approve purchases of Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500 (US export approval still unclear) Implicator, China signals it will approve Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 purchases (28 Sep 2026, following The Information)

2. 24 Sep 2026ChipsBoth

   Trump and Xi meet in Washington: an AI dialogue is set up, but no deal on chip controls Roll Call, AI export controls debate rages as Trump, Xi meet (23 Sep 2026)

3. 9 Jul 2026ChipsChina

   China reportedly to allow fewer than 200,000 H200s (under half of requests), for training only TrendForce

4. 1 Jun 2026ChipsUS

   Commerce: the licence rules also cover overseas arms of China-headquartered companies Al Jazeera, US says ban on AI chip shipments applies to Chinese firms outside China (1 Jun 2026)

5. 15 May 2026ChipsUS

   Commerce licenses H200 sales to about 10 Chinese firms (up to 75,000 each) TrendForce

6. 13 Jan 2026ChipsUS

   Commerce revises its licence policy for H200-class chips; China's customs reportedly hold them back US BIS, Commerce revises license review policy for semiconductors exported to China (13 Jan 2026)

7. 8 Dec 2025ChipsUS

   President Trump says Nvidia may sell H200s to China, with 25% of proceeds to the US government US BIS, Commerce revises license review policy for semiconductors exported to China (13 Jan 2026)

8. 17 Sep 2025ChipsChina

   Beijing reportedly tells big tech firms to stop buying Nvidia's China chips Bloomberg, China orders firms to stop buying Nvidia AI chip, FT says (17 Sep 2025)

9. 10 Jun 2025ChipsChina

   Huawei's Ren Zhengfei: chips are a generation behind, but clustering closes the gap (People's Daily) ChinaTalk, Huawei founder on US v China and basic research (translation of the People's Daily interview, 10 Jun 2025)

10. 13 May 2025ChipsUS

    The rule to control where AI chips go worldwide (AI Diffusion Rule) is withdrawn before it takes effect US BIS, Commerce announces rescission of the AI Diffusion Rule (13 May 2025)

11. 9 Apr 2025ChipsUS

    The China-only H20 now needs a licence too (Nvidia books a $4.5bn charge) NVIDIA 10-K

12. 2 Dec 2024ChipsUS

    High-bandwidth memory (HBM) and more chipmaking tools added to the controls US BIS, FDP rule additions and refinements for advanced computing and semiconductor manufacturing items (2 Dec 2024)

13. 17 Oct 2023ChipsUS

    Controls tightened; Nvidia's cut-down China chips (A800, H800) are caught too US BIS, Commerce strengthens restrictions on advanced computing semiconductors (17 Oct 2023)

14. 7 Oct 2022ChipsUS

    The US restricts exports of advanced AI chips and chipmaking tools to China. The shape of the race changes from here US BIS, Implementation of Additional Export Controls (7 Oct 2022)