How China's Cambricon is challenging NVIDIA's dominance in AI chips
Cambricon Technologies, started in 2016 with strong support from Beijing, is emerging as China's most promising homegrown challenger to NVIDIA.
By September 2025, the company hit a market value of about $81 billion and reported revenue of approximately $910 million this year—all while China pushes to reduce its reliance on US tech after chip export bans.
Cambricon's smart moves and R&D investments
Cambricon made smart moves by building software that lets AI models built for NVIDIA chips run smoothly on its own hardware.
This compatibility helped it land partnerships with major players like ByteDance and DeepSeek.
After losing Huawei as a client in 2019, Cambricon poured nearly $800 million into R&D over the next few years to boost performance and stay competitive.
Future plans and financial recovery
With solid state backing, Cambricon aims to more than double its revenue by 2026 and grab a bigger slice of China's AI chip market—possibly jumping from just 3% now to 11% by 2028.
Its growth depends partly on manufacturing partner SMIC putting Cambricon first over Huawei.
The company also posted a healthy profit of $140 million in the first half of 2025, showing it's back on track financially.