Chinese tech firms reportedly order $35B of Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 cards despite US curbs

what happened

Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and other Chinese technology companies have reportedly placed orders for Nvidia's RTX PRO 5500 workstation graphics cards worth close to $70 billion, according to a Reuters report relayed by Stocktwits. The orders cover more than 3 million units with a combined list price above $35 billion, and total orders from Chinese customers exceed 6 million units.

According to sources, Nvidia has warned its partners that it cannot guarantee it will fulfil all of the orders, since demand has outstripped planned production. One source estimated the chipmaker could deliver only 5% to 10% of the total order value.

U.S. export controls are driving the interest. Chinese buyers are barred from purchasing the Blackwell-based B300 data-center chip, and sales of the older Hopper-based H200 require approval on a case-by-case basis. The RTX PRO 5500 is less powerful, and Chinese firms are reportedly seeking it mainly for AI inference, the stage where trained models respond to user queries.

why it matters

For markets, the reports suggest Chinese demand for AI hardware remains strong despite export restrictions. However, the gap between orders and production raises doubts about how much revenue Nvidia can actually capture. The figures have not been confirmed by the company, so further comments will be worth watching.

market impact

Nvidia: strong Chinese demand, but uncertain deliveries cloud revenue expectations

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