NVIDIA's AI Market Share in China Plummets to Zero Amid Export Controls

Jensen says Nvidia's China AI GPU market share has plummeted from 95% to zero -- the Chinese market previously amounted to 20% to 25% of the chipmaker's data center revenue

Speaking at a Citadel Securities event on October 6, the Nvidia CEO blamed U.S. export controls and said the company now assumes no revenue from China in its forecasts. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last week that the company's share of China's advanced AI accelerator market has collapsed from roughly 95% to zero as US export controls continue to bite. The comment came during a live interview at Citadel Securities' Future of Global Markets 2025 event in New York on October 6, in which Huang said, "At the moment, we are 100% out of China," adding, "We went from 95% market share to 0%." A full video of the interview was published on YouTube this week by Citadel Securities and marks the first time Nvidia has publicly quantified the scale of its retreat. Huang didn't name specific products, but his remarks point squarely to Nvidia's data center GPU line, which has faced rolling waves of export restrictions since October 2022. The company's China-focused A800 and H800 parts were rendered noncompliant by export prohibitions in 2023, while a newer design -- the H20 -- has faced licensing hurdles of its own. "I can't imagine any policymaker thinking that's a good idea, that whatever policy we implemented caused America to lose one of the largest markets in the world to 0%," Huang said of the outcome. Nvidia has previously disclosed that China represented between 20% and 25% of its data center revenue -- a segment that generated more than $41 billion in its most recent financial results, representing a 56% year-over-year increase. While that figure includes cloud customers across a wide range of workloads, AI infrastructure remains the company's growth engine. A prolonged clampdown could reshape both demand and supply chains. The US government has tightened controls over AI accelerators sold to China as part of a broader strategy to limit Beijing's access to cutting-edge semiconductors. But Huang's comments highlight how quickly the dynamic has shifted on the ground. "In all of our forecasts... we're assuming 0% for China," he said. "If anything happens in China... it will be a bonus." Nvidia's cautious guidance comes amid signs of deeper fragmentation in the AI stack. China's hyperscalers and AI labs have increasingly turned to domestic silicon or alternative hardware in response to the export curbs, accelerating efforts to localize compute infrastructure. That's a trend Huang flagged earlier this year, when he warned that blanket restrictions could spur the development of competitive substitutes. While Huang said that he has hopes that Nvidia's business can return to China in the future, the company has effectively written off the country for the moment.

"Our Market Share Dropped From 95% to 0%," Says NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang in a 'Temporary Goodbye' to China's AI Market

NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang has commented on the firm's 'desperate' position in China, claiming that its market share has now plunged to 0%. The situation for Jensen & Co. in Beijing hasn't been optimal at all, especially in recent weeks, when China is pursuing a complete shift to a domestic AI tech stack, pivoting away from NVIDIA's options. It has now come to a point where NVIDIA doesn't have any AI solution to offer to Chinese tech giants, which is why, at the Citadel Securities Future Of Global Markets 2025, Jensen Huang claims that his company's share in China has dropped to 0%, claiming that America has lost one of the largest AI markets in the world. At the moment, we are 100% out of China, and so China is 0%. We went from a 95% market share to 0%, and so I can't imagine any policymaker thinking this is a good idea. In all our forecasts, we assume zero for China. If anything happens in China, it will be a bonus. There's no doubt that NVIDIA's presence in China's AI market has dropped dramatically, partly due to geopolitical tensions between the two global superpowers. However, this isn't the only concerning aspect for Team Green, as the increasing competition from companies like Huawei and Cambricon means that NVIDIA's re-entry into the region will become significantly more challenging. Huawei has already announced plans to compete with the Vera Rubin rack-scale lineup through an advanced AI chip roadmap, indicating that competition is intensifying. For now, NVIDIA's plans for China are uncertain, as they await regulatory approval from both sides. Jensen has expressed in the past that the next solution for Beijing will be a Blackwell-based chip, likely the B40. However, the primary constraint remains that the Trump administration won't allow a powerful solution to flow into a hostile nation. This narrows down NVIDIA's options to the point where the firm is limited to Hopper and below generations, and that won't do much to cater to the rivalry the company sees. Whether or not NVIDIA manages to see a restoration of China revenue is a question for the future, but for now, Jensen's statement indicates that Beijing is indeed off the table.