Nvidia Photo: VCG

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently indicated that the company will seek US government approval to export its Blackwell AI chips to China only after its most advanced Vera Rubin chips are rolled out in the second half of this year. Chinese experts said Nvidia's attempts to maintain market share advantages through preferential treatment have proved a failure in China.

The comments came shortly after the conclusion of Nvidia's flagship global tech conference, GTC 2026, where Huang outlined the company's future development roadmap. In a report by US media outlet Punchbowl News on Thursday, local times, Huang said it's critical to remain competitive in China, the second largest AI market in the world, in order to solidify US' global dominance of the AI stack.

Against this backdrop, Huang said that "early next year," he will make the push for the US government to allow Nvidia to sell its Blackwell chips to China after the most advanced Vera Rubin chip is widely used by companies in the US, as Huawei ramps up development of its own AI chips, report said.

"When all of the American companies have ramped up in Vera Rubin, we should start to think about making sure that Blackwell is able to go compete in the market," Huang said.

Nvidia is facing mounting pressure in the Chinese market as domestic chipmakers rapidly close the technology gap, Ma Jihua, a veteran industry analyst, told the Global Times on Friday, pointing out that if this gap continues to narrow, Nvidia risks losing its competitive edge, being pushed out of China altogether, and even facing potential competition from future Chinese chip exports.

Losing market share in China brings the US chip maker significant loss. A Reuters report on May 21, 2025, said that Nvidia's market share in China has shrunk to 50 percent from 95 percent. Another Reuters report on June 13, 2025, said Nvidia could lose China's $50 billion data center market, citing the company's spokesperson. 

In this context, Huang repeatedly emphasized during and after the GTC conference that Nvidia would return to the Chinese market. The Punchbowl News' report said that Nvidia's H200 chips - with lower performance but still subject to strict US export controls - are expected to reach China as early as a few "weeks," according to Huang, and Nvidia has restarted manufacturing of one of its chips designed to comply with US export restrictions on China, according to Reuters on March 17, 2026.

Huang's intensive signals recently may be driven largely by commercial considerations, Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Zhongguancun Modern Information Consumer Application Industry Technology Alliance, told the Global Times on Friday, noting that the strategy aims to supply China's fast-growing AI sector while supporting Nvidia's stock price and delivering confidence to its shareholders.

However, analysts said that Chinese companies are increasingly capable of producing domestic AI chips as alternatives to Nvidia's products. The H200, an older-generation chip, may struggle to gain traction in the Chinese market at present.

In addition, Nvidia also faces ongoing political pressure from Washington. Punchbowl News noted that China hawks in US Congress had warned the Trump administration about allowing H200 sales to China, hoping the licensing process would slow shipments. If H200 orders will land in China, these critics are likely dissatisfied - and Huang's next step could upset them further, according to Punchbowl News' report.

Xiang argued that AI is entering a reasoning-focused phase, which does not require the most cutting-edge chips. Standard chips can handle much of the computational workload, meaning companies do not need to pay premium prices for top-tier Nvidia products. China's AI sector has continued to develop robustly without large-scale purchases of Nvidia's highest-end chips, he said. 

Over the long term, Xiang said, China has largely overcome the barriers posed by Nvidia's export restrictions, and China's AI applications are progressing rapidly, and domestic firms can train models and run robotics operations using lower-cost alternatives. 

"The evolving technological landscape will limit Nvidia's ability to acquire market dominance in China through high-end chip restrictions," he said.