Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), touted as the world's most valuable chipmaker, is still riding high with $4.4 trillion market cap and booming AI demand, but a new China-based chipmaker is stealing the spotlight at home.
Shares of Cambricon Technologies, which only trades in the Shanghai Stock Exchange market, have more than double this month, surging 125%, compared to the boringly flat performance of Nvidia.
Nvidia Crushed Earnings—But China Is Gone
Let's be clear: Nvidia posted strong fiscal second quarter results. Revenue jumped 56% year-over-year to $46.7 billion, adjusted EPS rose 53%, and demand for AI chips shows no sign of slowing. The company even expects another 50% revenue increase in the current quarter.
But there's one glaring hole in the numbers: zero H20 chip sales in China.
That's a direct hit from the U.S. government's export ban on Nvidia's top AI chips to China.
Nvidia said China made up 13% of its revenue last fiscal year, and the crackdown has already cost the company big, including a $4.5 billion charge last quarter tied to unsold inventory.
Cambricon Chart
As Nvidia's presence in China fades, Cambricon Technologies is stepping into the vacuum—and investors are taking notice.
The Beijing-based chipmaker just delivered a jaw-dropping 4,000% year-over-year surge in first-half revenue, reaching $403.8 million, its best result since going public in 2020. That report, first highlighted by the South China Morning Post, sent the stock flying.
Cambricon is now up 125% in the past month alone, and more than 1,000% over the past two years.
It's not just Chinese investors piling in. Eric Jackson, founder of EMJ Capital and best known for calling Opendoor's surprise rally, is paying close attention.
"The NVDA of China has exploded with new products… It's tripled since July," Jackson said on X.
The timing couldn't be better for Cambricon. Beijing is pushing companies to ditch foreign chips and stick with homegrown hardware—especially as suspicions swirl around Nvidia's H20 chips, which Chinese regulators claim could contain tracking functions or remote kill switches.
Nvidia denies those claims, but the message from the Chinese government is clear: buy local, and build fast.
Is Washington Fueling China's Chip Independence?
The U.S. hoped that banning Nvidia's top AI chips would stall China's tech ambitions. Instead, it may have done the opposite.
Ed Yardeni, one of Wall Street's most followed macro voices, says China is now planning to triple its AI chip production by next year, backed by a sweeping new policy to embed AI into economic and social sectors. That strategy includes heavy support for domestic players like Cambricon—and it's already paying off.
So while Nvidia remains the global leader in AI hardware, it's now facing an undeniable reality: one of its most important markets is slipping away. And if Cambricon keeps this pace, it may not just be China's Nvidia—it could become a serious global contender in the AI chip race.
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