Huawei and Cambricon lead China’s AI server chip surge, piling pressure on Nvidia

Chinese chip suppliers led by Huawei and Cambricon are set to capture nearly 80% of China's AI server market by 2026, up from 46% in 2025, as geopolitical tensions and Beijing's push for self-reliance erode Nvidia's position. TrendForce forecasts foreign suppliers' share will fall to 21% in 2026 from 34% last year, while domestic firms and Chinese internet companies' custom chips dominate.

Huawei and Cambricon lead China’s AI server chip surge, piling pressure on Nvidia Huawei and Cambricon are set to dominate China’s AI server market as geopolitics and self-reliance accelerate Nvidia’s retreat Iris Deng /author/iris-deng in Shenzhen Chinese chip suppliers led by Huawei Technologies and Cambricon Technologies, together with tech giants developing their own silicon, are set to capture nearly 80 per cent of the domestic AI server market this year, further squeezing global rivals such as Nvidia, according to TrendForce. Geopolitical tensions continue to erode the position of Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and other foreign suppliers, whose combined share of China’s AI server market is forecast to fall to 21 per cent in 2026 from 34 per cent last year, according to the Taipei-based research firm. Domestic chip suppliers, led by Huawei and Cambricon, are expected to increase their market share to 56 per cent in 2026, up from 46 per cent in 2025. Meanwhile, highly specialised application-specific integrated circuits ASICs designed by Chinese internet companies are projected to account for 23 per cent of the market, compared with 20 per cent a year earlier. “This segment will continue to scale up” as geopolitical uncertainty and Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance accelerate adoption, said Frank Kung, research manager at TrendForce, at the company’s conference in Shenzhen on Tuesday. On the demand side, China’s largest internet companies are driving AI chip growth, rapidly expanding their deployment of domestic processors from suppliers such as Huawei and Cambricon.