Chinese Cities Set 70% Domestic AI-Chip Goal to Curb Reliance on Nvidia

Several of China’s largest municipalities have set a goal of sourcing at least 70% of their artificial-intelligence chips from domestic suppliers by 2027, Nikkei Asia reported. The move is intended to cut reliance on Nvidia, whose graphics processors dominate global AI training workloads, and to bolster China’s ability to build advanced systems despite U.S. export controls. The local initiatives dovetail with Beijing’s broader semiconductor strategy, which funnels subsidies and procurement preferences toward home-grown technologies. Companies such as Huawei Technologies, which has begun shipping its own Ascend line of AI accelerators, are expected to benefit as city governments rewrite purchasing rules and encourage joint ventures with domestic fabs. If successful, the policy would redraw a key segment of the global chip supply chain and threaten a lucrative market for U.S. vendors. Nvidia has warned that successive U.S. licensing restrictions could hurt sales in China, which industry analysts estimate account for a significant share of the company’s data-center revenue.