ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent have ordered more than 3 million RTX PRO 5500 workstation GPUs.
| Photo Credit:
Dado Ruvic
ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have
ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia’s new RTX PRO 5500
graphics cards with a collective sticker price of over $35
billion, two people familiar with the matter said, in a rush for
a less powerful but export-compliant chip amid US restrictions
on trade with China.
US-based chipmaker Nvidia has told customers and
partners it cannot guarantee that it can fill the orders because
demand from Chinese technology companies far exceeds planned
production, the two sources and a third person familiar with the
matter said. They requested anonymity because they are not
authorised to speak to the media.
The RTX PRO 5500 is a workstation chip, designed for
powerful professional computers rather than the large
data-centre clusters that use Nvidia’s most advanced AI
processors. But it is among the most powerful Nvidia chips that
are still available to Chinese buyers.
Nvidia’s Blackwell-based B300 data-centre chip is not
allowed to be sold to Chinese buyers under US export controls,
while exports of its Hopper-based H200 are reviewed on a
case-by-case basis and are subject to licensing conditions.
One source said Nvidia told partners they might receive only
5 per cent to 10 per cent of the quantities requested. Another said the company
had indicated it could produce no more than 3 million RTX PRO
5500 cards globally in 2027. Total orders from customers in
China have exceeded 6 million, two of the sources said.
The three Chinese tech giants’ orders are for cards priced
at about $11,400 each, two of the sources said, giving them a
potential combined value of more than $35 billion.
The scale of the orders, which have not been previously
reported, underscores the ongoing appetite among Chinese
companies for Nvidia hardware despite the US curbs.
Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang has said the
restrictions reduced Nvidia’s share of China’s AI data-centre
chip market from a near monopoly to effectively nothing. But
demand for the RTX PRO 5500 suggests Nvidia retains a sizeable
potential market in China through less powerful products that
may still be available.
The surge in demand also highlights how US restrictions have
tightened computing-power supplies in the world’s second-largest
economy as Chinese companies race to develop cutting-edge AI
models and propel Beijing’s effort to deploy the technology
across its industries.
Washington’s curbs have pushed Chinese firms toward domestic
suppliers, while Beijing has encouraged the use of homegrown
chips.
Huawei, in particular, has gained market share, though
Chinese chipmakers have generally struggled to match leading
American products, partly because separate restrictions have
limited access to the foreign equipment that is used to make the
most advanced semiconductors.
An Nvidia spokesperson said Chinese producers of workstation
chips and cards have experienced “unprecedented growth since
2022,” when the curbs were first imposed.
“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 said.
ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent did not
respond to requests for comment.
The US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and
Security, which oversees the export controls, and China’s
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not respond
to requests for comment.
AN EXPORT-COMPLIANT ALTERNATIVE
The RTX PRO 5500 is less powerful than Nvidia’s H200 and
B300 chips, which are designed to be linked in large numbers for
the most demanding AI training and deployment workloads.
Chinese companies are seeking to use the cards primarily for
AI inference, or running trained models to generate chatbot
responses, the three sources said. Inference generally requires
less computing power than training models on massive datasets.
The RTX PRO 5500 is similar to the RTX 6000D in performance,
according to product specifications seen by Reuters.
Nvidia launched the RTX 6000D in the middle of last year as
a reduced-capability product designed to meet US export
restrictions. Major Chinese tech firms initially showed little
interest, with some declining to place orders, Reuters reported
last year.
At the time, buyers viewed the chips as overly expensive
given their capabilities and hoped Washington would eventually
allow sales of more powerful Nvidia processors.
Those expectations have faded as restrictions have remained
in place and AI computing capacity has remained scarce, making
the RTX PRO 5500 a more attractive substitute, two of the
sources said.
SUPPLY SQUEEZE
Nvidia’s inability to promise full deliveries reflects both
a surge in demand and its manufacturing priorities, two of the
sources said.
Starting in 2027, Nvidia is expected to devote much of its
capacity at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to
Rubin, its next-generation platform for large-scale data
centres, rather than products like the RTX PRO 5500, two of the
sources said. TSMC declined to comment.
Nvidia has told customers to expect early samples in
December, with commercial deliveries beginning in the first
quarter of 2027, they added.
The RTX 6000D has since been discontinued and its market
price in China has doubled, one of the sources said.
In an October 13 filing, Shenzhen-listed fintech and
AI-computing services company Tansun Technology said it had
agreed to buy 20,000 RTX PRO 5500 cards from an unidentified
counterparty.
It cautioned that supply shortages, industry demand and
overseas technology controls could delay deliveries or reduce
volumes.
Published on October 20, 2026
