Saturday, April 5th 2025
China's Largest AI Firms Reportedly Forked Out ~$16 Billion Total for NVIDIA H20 GPU Supplies in 2025
Last week, industry reports pointed to evidence of NVIDIA H20 AI GPU shortages in China—supply chain insiders expressed frustration about limited availability, and alleged price hikes. Days later, local media outlets have disclosed staggering sales figures. Two unnamed sources opine that the likes of Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance have spent roughly US$16 billion on H20 purchases, across the first three months of 2025. Back in February, Reuters noted an extraordinary surge in orders for: "(Team Green's) H20 model—the most advanced AI processor legally available in China under U.S. export controls—driven by booming demand for Chinese startup DeepSeek's low-cost AI models." The unprecedented rush—to secure precious AI-crunching hardware—was likely motivated by whispers of elevated restrictions; coming from across the Pacific Ocean.
Curiously, local government bodies have allegedly "advised" a stoppage of H20 orders—a recent Financial Times article suggested that this message was directed at the nation's largest AI players (mentioned above). A few industry moles believe that NVIDIA's engineering department is working on another Chinese market exclusive AI chip, although it is not clear whether a new entrant will be designed to conform to recently introduced "not very strict" environmental regulations. Anonymous sources have made noise about an upgraded H20 variant; sporting fancy HBM3E modules.
Sources:
MyDrivers, Wccftech, Reuters, The Strait Times, CGTN (image source), Business of Fashion (image source)
Curiously, local government bodies have allegedly "advised" a stoppage of H20 orders—a recent Financial Times article suggested that this message was directed at the nation's largest AI players (mentioned above). A few industry moles believe that NVIDIA's engineering department is working on another Chinese market exclusive AI chip, although it is not clear whether a new entrant will be designed to conform to recently introduced "not very strict" environmental regulations. Anonymous sources have made noise about an upgraded H20 variant; sporting fancy HBM3E modules.
10 Comments on China's Largest AI Firms Reportedly Forked Out ~$16 Billion Total for NVIDIA H20 GPU Supplies in 2025
I wish they never released the 5090, if the plan was never to make enough products to support those who use and need without a store charging $4000 for a Gammer GPU.
If I had to pay $4000 for a GPU, I will get a professional GPU, because I see they hold value in the long run.
And fyi, I initially offered to list them on fleecebay for the company, so the money would have went to them, but was laughed at when I made that offer.....
Oh well, their bad :D
There's still little decent revenue generating front end use case for any of this hardware. They'll never be in my view because llms are fundamentally flawed technology.
The other shoe will have to drop on this AI craze, someday.