NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said the company’s market share in China has fallen to zero, as US export controls blocked sales of advanced AI chips to the country. He said this during a recent podcast conversation with Ylli Bajraktari, President and CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP).
“NVIDIA had somewhat 90% of the world’s market share. Today, in China, we have dropped to zero,” Huang said during the discussion. “Conceding an entire market the size of China probably doesn’t make a lot of strategic sense.”
In FY25, 13% of NVIDIA’s total revenue came from China and Hong Kong, despite the strict export controls.
He warned that the restrictions may have strengthened China’s push towards semiconductor self-sufficiency, adding that the US should continue promoting American technology leadership while allowing domestic chip firms to compete in key overseas markets, including China.
He urged policymakers to adopt a “dynamic” approach to export rules as the AI market evolves. The comments come as the US continues tightening restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports to China. The controls began in 2022 and later expanded to cover several NVIDIA chips designed specifically for the Chinese market.
According to reports, before the export curbs, the Chinese market accounted for nearly a quarter of the giant’s data centre revenue.
Huang argued that keeping American companies present in China would help preserve the influence of the US technology ecosystem globally. He said the US should aim to lead across “every layer” of AI, including energy, chips, infrastructure, models and applications.
“We should always have the best technology first and most to American companies,” Huang said. “On the other hand, ensure that American companies win around the world.”
He also warned that China has already built strengths in several parts of the AI stack. Huang pointed to the country’s energy production, engineering talent and growing pool of AI researchers. He said China’s AI ecosystem was advancing rapidly despite US controls.
Fears around AI job losses and adoption could potentially slow the US at a time when Asian countries are moving aggressively to deploy the technology. “The rest of Asia is embracing and adopting AI with great enthusiasm. This is how we get generally left behind,” he added.
His remarks come amid rising competition from Chinese firms such as Huawei and Cambricon Technologies, which have expanded their AI chip businesses as NVIDIA’s access to China narrowed.
A recent example of this trend is the launch of the DeepSeek V4 family of models. Huawei confirmed that its Ascend 950 AI chips will offer complete support for DeepSeek V4, while DeepSeek’s technical report indicated that inference costs are expected to decline substantially once Huawei’s Ascend 950 supernodes are deployed at scale in the second half of 2026.
“The day that DeepSeek comes out on Huawei first, that is a horrible outcome for our nation,” said Huang in a recent podcast with Dwarakesh Patel.
Huawei is set to capture the largest share of China’s AI chip market this year, with sales jumping by at least 60%, as per reports. Some also state that various Chinese tech groups have placed large orders for Huawei’s latest Ascend processor 950PR.
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