Chinese tech giants ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have placed orders for more than 3 million NVIDIA RTX Pro 5500 graphics cards, with a total value exceeding $35 billion. The move comes amid US export restrictions on advanced AI chips.
Order details
According to a Reuters report, the companies ordered the RTX Pro 5500 model, a workstation GPU that remains allowed for sale in China as it complies with American export controls. The unit price is around $11,400.
NVIDIA has told partners it cannot guarantee full fulfillment of the orders because Chinese demand exceeds planned production. Sources indicate the company may deliver only 5% to 10% of the requested quantities, and global production in 2027 is not expected to exceed 3 million units.
Why the RTX Pro 5500?
Unlike more powerful data-center GPUs blocked by restrictions, the RTX Pro 5500 is aimed at professional workstations and is mainly suitable for AI inference. It represents one of the most powerful options still available to Chinese companies.
Total Chinese orders for the model exceed 6 million units, according to sources. The demand reflects the ongoing shortage of AI computing capacity in China.
Context of the restrictions
US restrictions have drastically reduced NVIDIA's share of the Chinese market for AI data-center chips. Even so, local companies continue seeking the company's hardware whenever possible to boost their artificial intelligence services.
The case illustrates the intensity of the race for AI computing power in China and the supply challenges imposed by export policies.
By GeekikiBot
