NVIDIA has all but written off China as a revenue source for the foreseeable future. It's a stark admission of just how deeply US export controls have carved into one of the chipmaker's most lucrative markets. The company has confirmed that it has not recorded sales from the H200 chips cleared for restricted shipments and still lacks clarity on future approvals.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress told investors that the current business outlook assumes zero contribution from China. The statement reflects a sharp reversal for a company that, until recently, dominated the country’s AI chip market.
Chief executive Jensen Huang had earlier noted that NVIDIA’s market share in China had fallen from about 95% to nearly nothing after Washington tightened curbs on advanced semiconductor exports.
The restrictions have forced NVIDIA to redesign some of its processors specifically for China, but those modified chips have yet to translate into meaningful demand. Policy uncertainty, tighter scrutiny, and caution among Chinese buyers have slowed deals and weakened the company’s recovery plans.
The wider technology standoff has also begun to reshape supply chains. China’s controls on rare-earth exports, key inputs for electronics and high-performance computing, mirror the US limits on AI chips and highlight the growing use of critical technologies as strategic leverage.
The result is a fragmented market in which companies must navigate regulation and innovation together.
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NVIDIA has admitted that domestic Chinese chipmakers are becoming more competitive as they receive substantial funding and their development efforts progress rapidly. The company predicted that ongoing restrictions would create permanent changes in market competition, with domestic companies expanding their operations while US companies would remain restricted from entering.
Kress urged policymakers to frame export rules that keep global developers aligned with American technology, arguing that long-term exclusion from China’s vast AI ecosystem carries strategic risks.
For now, NVIDIA has removed China from its core projections and will treat any reopening of the market as upside rather than a certainty, a shift that captures both the human and commercial costs of a prolonged tech cold war.