# Huawei says its Ascend chips have overtaken Nvidia in China

> Huawei’s rotating chairman claims Ascend AI chips now hold more market share in China than Nvidia’s, after US export limits slowed foreign sales.

Oossa · 2026-09-30 · https://oossa.com/en/huawei-says-its-ascend-chips-have-overtaken-nvidia-in-china

Huawei’s rotating chairman Eric Xu told the media on September 30, 2026 that the company’s Ascend line of neural processing units (NPUs) has passed Nvidia in Chinese market share. He said the data they have collected shows Ascend “has surpassed Nvidia.” The claim comes after the United States tightened export controls on high‑end AI accelerators, which forced Chinese data‑centers to look for domestic alternatives.

## Why the claim matters

If Huawei’s chips truly dominate the Chinese market, Chinese AI developers will face fewer supply interruptions, because the chips are not subject to sudden export bans. For a typical Chinese startup, this could mean more reliable access to compute power for training and serving models, even if the chips are technically slower than Nvidia’s top products.

## The facts

- Eric Xu said Ascend has “surpassed Nvidia” in market share in China – statement made on September 30, 2026.
- The US reversed its export restrictions in summer 2025, allowing Nvidia to sell H200‑series chips to approved Chinese customers.
- Nvidia’s own Q2 earnings call said shipments of H200 to China were “less than 1 percent” of its datacenter revenue.
- Huawei is deploying a 256,000‑card Atlas 950 SuperCluster that can scale to up to one million NPUs.

## Why it matters

Chinese AI firms can count on a steady supply of Ascend chips, reducing the risk of production stalls caused by export bans. However, the claim is based on Huawei’s own data, and independent market figures are not publicly available, so the exact size of Nvidia’s remaining share remains unclear.

## Sources & references

1. [Huawei boss claims homegrown AI chip sales top Nvidia in China](https://www.theregister.com/systems/2026/09/30/huawei-boss-claims-homegrown-ai-chip-sales-top-nvidia-in-china/5300266) – The Register, 2026-09-30

Last updated: 2026-09-30