The largest Chinese companies in the field of artificial intelligence and cloud computing — Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings, ByteDance, and several others — have collectively placed orders with the American company Nvidia for about 6 million professional RTX Pro 5500 accelerators. With each graphics card costing over $11,000, the total value of these orders is estimated at approximately $70 billion. However, according to the customers' own forecasts, they will only be able to receive a few tens of thousands of accelerators over the next four months, which is about 1% of the total volume of placed orders.
Reasons for the Shortage: Priority on Advanced Chips
According to a source citing informed circles, such modest actual shipments are due to the fact that Nvidia is focused on expanding the production of advanced accelerators. High demand for flagship chips does not allow the company to increase shipments of less powerful graphics cards to China. Thus, even those models that are formally available for the PRC are in short supply due to production capacity being occupied by more in-demand products.
Legal Status of RTX Pro 5500 and the Role of Local Manufacturers
US authorities continue to prohibit Nvidia from supplying its advanced accelerators to China; however, RTX Pro 5500 graphics cards do not have sufficient performance to fall under these restrictions. Nevertheless, within the PRC, this product is considered one of the best AI accelerators available. Local manufacturers — Huawei Technologies and T-Head (a division of Alibaba) — despite achieved technological progress, still lag behind the American competitor in performance and technological capabilities, which underscores the acute shortage of computing power for the AI sector in China.
Delivery Schedule and 2027 Outlook
According to an informed source who wished to remain anonymous, the first batch of several thousand RTX Pro 5500 graphics cards is expected by the end of 2026, and the next batch, numbering several tens of thousands of accelerators, is expected in February 2027. At the moment, these are the only confirmed deliveries. According to estimates by Chinese AI developers, by the end of 2027, they could receive about 700,000 RTX Pro 5500 accelerators, which is linked to an increase in production volumes by Nvidia. At the same time, actual delivery volumes may change depending on adjustments to the American company's production capacities.
What This Means for the AI Race
Limited shipments complicate the task for Chinese companies striving to catch up with Western competitors in the field of artificial intelligence. On the one hand, the scale of the placed orders (about $70 billion) demonstrates the PRC's willingness to invest in computing infrastructure even under export restrictions. On the other hand, the gap between the volume of orders and real shipments indicates that access to advanced accelerators remains a key bottleneck for the Chinese AI industry in the coming months and years.
