ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia's new chips, worth over $35 billion combined1. Nvidia says it can build only that many cards for the entire world next year2. The three firms alone asked for Nvidia's whole global supply of one chip.
Total orders from Chinese buyers already topped 6 million units3. Nvidia told partners they might get just 5 to 10 percent of what they asked for2. Much of this order, in other words, may stay on paper. Buyers placed it anyway, betting on a future allocation.
China's big three alone ordered 3 million chips, matching Nvidia's full 2027 output
RTX PRO 5500 cards, Reuters reporting on Nvidia's orders and 2027 production plan, Oct. 20, 2026
Each bar counts RTX PRO 5500 cards: all Chinese orders, the big three's own order, and Nvidia's 2027 global cap.
Nvidia has described each figure as more than the number shown; the chart draws the floor each source reports.
Sources: BNN Bloomberg [2]; Yahoo Finance [3]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| All Chinese orders | 6.0M |
| ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent order | 3.0M |
| Nvidia's 2027 global cap | 3.0M |
A Legal Chip, Built to Fit the Gap
The RTX PRO 5500 is a workstation card, built for a desk4. Data centers run a different class of chip entirely. This one matches Nvidia's gaming flagship on processing cores, but carries far more memory for AI work. Nvidia launched the chip in September 2026.
Chinese buyers want the chip mainly for AI inference, where a model already trained does the work. Washington bans Nvidia's Blackwell-based B300 chip from China outright, and requires a license for every H200 sale3. This card skips both barriers, so it remains the strongest chip Nvidia can still sell there freely.
The Order Outgrows the Plan
Each card costs buyers about $11,4003. The big three's combined order works out to 3 million-plus units, matching Nvidia's entire production run for next year2. Early samples ship in December, with full deliveries starting in early 2027.
Nvidia builds these chips at TSMC in Taiwan, where capacity runs within a fixed limit. Starting next year, Nvidia plans to hand most of that capacity to Rubin, its next data-center platform, leaving less room for this card2. The shift means the squeeze on the RTX PRO 5500 likely tightens before it eases. A smaller Chinese firm, Tansun Technology, filed in October to buy 20,000 units and still faces delivery risk1.
Nvidia says buyers may get as little as 5 percent of what they ordered
Share of Chinese RTX PRO 5500 orders Nvidia expects to fill in 2027
The lit wedge is the largest share of an order Nvidia has told partners to expect. The rest of the ring is the share of each order likely to go unfilled.
Nvidia gave partners a range of 5 to 10 percent; the chart shows the high end of that range.
Source: BNN Bloomberg [2]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Share Nvidia may deliver | 10% |
| Whole | 100% |
Prices already show the squeeze building. The RTX 6000D, this chip's discontinued predecessor, sells in China for double what it fetched before Nvidia stopped making it1.
Why Nvidia Calls the Rules Outdated
A Nvidia spokesperson pointed to policy, beside capacity, as a cause. "US firms continue to be restricted by a combination of outdated US export controls, which cover gaming products released nearly a half a decade ago, and China's own limit on US imports," the spokesperson said2.
Chief executive Jensen Huang made the same point in his own words, a year ago this week. He told interviewers Nvidia's China business collapsed under rules Washington already had in place. "We went from 95% market share to 0%, and so I can't imagine any policymaker thinking that that's a good idea," Huang said8.
The pattern since backs him up. Nvidia's AI chip shipments to China fell 44 percent over the past year, down to 678,000 units5. ByteDance and Tencent were each licensed for 75,000 H200 chips, but received only 10,000 apiece by August4. A compliant chip Chinese firms can buy in bulk is new.
A Case for Calling This a Win
Rep. John Moolenaar chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He reads the same shortage as proof the rules work.
Writing to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about a separate chip decision last December, he laid out the argument this order now tests. "Export controls that President Trump put in place have been highly effective in securing the U.S. lead and forcing China into increasingly desperate illicit procurement," Moolenaar wrote7.
By that logic, a towering backlog becomes proof the rules work, rather than a crisis. It is China settling for a lesser, compliant chip because the real ones stay locked away.
Huawei's domestic alternative, the 910C, depends on manufacturing from Taiwan and South Korea. Washington is moving to block that supply line too. Moolenaar's letter called the chip "a case study in ensuring the effectiveness of U.S. export control policy"7.
The order numbers alone leave the question open. A backlog shows intent to buy. Nvidia counts revenue only once a card ships, and it already warns most of this backlog will go unfilled2.
Whether that gap helps the United States or costs it a market depends on what Chinese buyers do with the fraction they actually receive. It also depends on how quickly Huawei can fill the rest of the shelf on its own.
What to Do
Track deliveries over orders. Nvidia's own estimate means the real story breaks in December, when the first samples ship1. A second marker lands in early 2027, when commercial volumes start.
Watch the RTX 6000D's resale price in China as a live gauge of the shortage. A price that keeps climbing says buyers still expect scarcity ahead. Steady prices would say the new cards are finally landing.
By the numbers
- 3 million-plus: RTX PRO 5500 cards ordered together by ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent1.
- $35 billion-plus: list price of the big three's combined order1.
- $11,400: list price of one RTX PRO 5500 card3.
- 3 million: Nvidia's stated cap on RTX PRO 5500 production worldwide in 20272.
- 6 million-plus: total RTX PRO 5500 orders placed by Chinese buyers3.
- 5 to 10 percent: share of requested cards Nvidia expects to deliver2.
- 44 percent: year-over-year drop in Nvidia's China AI chip shipments, to 678,000 units5.
- 6,351: daily Wikipedia pageviews for Nvidia's page on Oct. 20, 2026, when the order became public6.
What to watch
Watch whether Nvidia raises its production target before the December samples ship. A higher number would show the cap was a planning choice, rather than a hard ceiling. Beijing's own import limits deserve watching too, since Nvidia says they already share the blame for the shortfall. A measurable rise in actual shipments by mid-2027 would tell buyers, and Washington, how much of this backlog was ever real.
Sources
- Reuters, "Exclusive-ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent place over $35 billion worth of Nvidia chip orders," Investing.com, Oct. 20, 2026, https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/exclusivebytedance-alibaba-tencent-place-over-35-billion-worth-of-nvidia-chip-orders-4959231
- Reuters, "ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent place over US$35 billion worth of Nvidia chip orders: Reuters exclusive," BNN Bloomberg, Oct. 20, 2026, https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/company-news/2026/10/20/bytedance-alibaba-tencent-place-over-us35-billion-worth-of-nvidia-chip-orders-reuters-exclusive/
- Prabhjote Gill, "Nvidia Reportedly Sees Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent Order $35B In RTX PRO 5500 Chips Amid US Export Curbs," Yahoo Finance, Oct. 20, 2026, https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nvidia-reportedly-sees-alibaba-bytedance-104826226.html
- Asia Times staff, "After Trump-Xi summit, Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 gains export prospects," Asia Times, Sept. 26, 2026, https://asiatimes.com/2026/09/after-trump-xi-summit-nvidia-rtx-pro-5500-gains-export-prospects/
- TipRanks News, "Nvidia Stock (NVDA) Falls Despite Report of $35B Chip Orders from Chinese Tech Giants — Here's Why," TipRanks, Oct. 20, 2026, https://www.tipranks.com/news/nvidia-stock-nvda-falls-despite-report-of-35b-chip-orders-from-chinese-tech-giants-heres-why
- Wikimedia Foundation, "Pageviews for Nvidia, Oct. 20, 2026," Oct. 20, 2026, https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/metrics/pageviews/per-article/en.wikipedia/all-access/user/Nvidia/daily/20261020/20261020
- John Moolenaar, "Moolenaar: U.S. Winning the AI Race Against Weak Chinese Chip Sector," House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Dec. 16, 2025, https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/media/press-releases/moolenaar-us-winning-the-ai-race-against-weak-chinese-chip-sector
- Yahoo Finance staff, "Jensen Huang says Nvidia went from 95% market share in China to 0%, 'I can't imagine any policymaker thinking that that's a good idea,'" Yahoo Finance, Oct. 21, 2025, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jensen-huang-says-nvidia-went-211703977.html