Nvidia boss says company has no market share in China

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says that the US should be more methodical about policies that impact the export of AI tech to China.
• Right now, Nvidia has zero market share in China thanks to policies imposed by the US government over the years.
• “Whatever policy we implemented caused America to lose one of the largest markets in the world,” Huang said.

Despite having a market capitalisation of approximately $4.4 trillion at the last count, Nvidia has no market share in China anymore according to chief executive officer Jensen Huang.

Last week at the Future of Global Markets 2025 in an interview with Sequoia Capital partner Konstantine Buhler, Huang (who was not wearing a leather jacket) spoke on all manner of topics that involve Nvidia including artificial intelligence which is arguably its biggest revenue generator at the moment.

Toward the end of the hour long conversation, the subject of China came up, particularly what the US should be doing as regards exports of tech that powers AI to the Asian superpower.

“The United States of course wants to win the AI race and I think the policymakers all want to do the right thing and want America to win. However, it’s important to be mindful that what harms China could often times also harm America even worse. Before we move toward policies that are hurtful to other people take a step back and maybe reflect on what the policies that are helpful to America,” Huang said.

The CEO goes on to note that developers of AI are vitally important to the technology and its advancement which is accurate because if there are no solutions that require pallets upon pallets of Nvidia GPUs, the company, and by extension America, doesn’t make money.

According to Huang, 50 percent of the world’s AI researchers are Chinese and as such he reckons its a mistake to not have China, and the rest of the world, building AI on an American tech stack.

“At the moment we are 100 percent out of China,” says Huang. “So China is 0 percent. We went from 95 percent market share to 0 percent and I can’t imagine any policymaker thinking that’s a good idea. Whatever policy we implemented caused America to lose one of the largest markets in the world, to zero percent.”

Huang went on to say that if anything happens in China, it will be seen as a bonus for investors but really, the fact that Nvidia is just absent from one of the largest markets in the world is concerning.

The CEO was careful not to lay blame on any one US administration but both the Biden and Trump leadership teams have made it incredibly hard for Nvidia to do business with China. That tide is set to change. Eventually.

Back in August reports emerged that the US government would allow Nvidia and AMD to resume business with China provided a number of conditions were met. This allegedly includes the company’s giving the government 15 percent of the revenue derived from China, for nothing but the privilege of selling product to the country. The details on this are still in the air and, given this interview and that Huang says the company still isn’t in China, that deal is seemingly still in motion.

However, while that deal is being worked out, China is making hay. Not only has the company banned the use of Nvidia AI chips, it’s making its own now. On Tuesday South China Morning Post reported that a superfast analogue chip had been developed by researchers in Peking University that was 1 000 times faster than Nvidia’s H100 GPU. That’s a bold claim but we suspect Huang may be sweating just a little bit.