Huawei closes in on Nvidia as non-GPU AI chips overtake GPUs in China

Huawei is narrowing the gap with Nvidia in China’s AI accelerator market, while chips outside the GPU category have, for the first time, outsold GPUs there. The figures point to a changing market, where demand is spreading beyond the biggest general-purpose accelerators.

Huawei AI Watch analysis

What happened

Vietnam.vn reports, citing Reuters’ account of IDC figures, that Nvidia held 34% of China’s data-centre AI accelerator market in the first half of 2026, against Huawei’s 28%. Nvidia shipped 678,000 accelerators, while Huawei shipped 572,000, up from more than 300,000 a year earlier. The Vietnam.vn report says the figures count chips, not their relative performance.

Across the market, shipments of non-GPU AI accelerators rose by nearly 80% to 1.016 million. GPU shipments fell 26% to 991,000, putting non-GPU chips ahead for the first time. IDC’s reported figures also put Huawei, Alibaba’s T-Head, Baidu’s Kunlunxin and Cambricon together at 95% of China’s non-GPU accelerator market.

Why it matters

A market that once looked like a contest for the fastest GPU is becoming a broader contest over which hardware can handle which AI jobs. The reported shift suggests Chinese buyers are using more specialised processors, as well as GPUs, for workloads such as chatbots and data analysis.

It also helps explain why Huawei’s gains matter beyond the headline share comparison. Nvidia remains ahead by chip shipments, but the mix of products being bought is changing, in a market where export restrictions affect what can be supplied.

Our read

This is a meaningful change in the shape of China’s AI hardware market, not proof that Huawei’s chips match Nvidia’s performance. Market share by unit count cannot settle that question, and the figures do not tell us how the chips compare on cost, capacity or workload. Still, when the non-GPU category passes GPUs altogether, the chip race is plainly no longer one race.

What to watch

• Whether Huawei and other domestic suppliers keep growing their shipments.
• Whether non-GPU accelerators continue to outsell GPUs in later reporting periods.
• How the changing mix affects the market’s total computing capacity and cost.

Discussion spark: Should China’s AI chip race be judged by who ships the most chips, or by how much useful computing those chips deliver?

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