Flores’ voice – Geopolitical tensions between the United States and China in the technology sector are increasingly simmering.
The US government has officially tightened its technology export regulations, especially regarding the latest generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips to the Bamboo Curtain country.
Washington’s aggressive steps are forcing Chinese technology giants, such as Huawei and Alibaba, to move quickly to hunt for—and create—alternatives to escape complete dependence on Nvidia.
Also read: Shaking Nvidia’s dominance, Huawei is preparing ‘Her’s Law’ as a new weapon in 2026!
Total Blockade of Washington: Closing the Final Gap
This latest policy from the US Department of Commerce is designed to close loopholes that previously could still be exploited by Chinese companies.
If in the previous regulations Nvidia was still allowed to sell chips with customized specifications (such as the H20 series), the latest restrictions now include much stricter computing standardization.
The US government argues that this restriction is purely to maintain national security.
“We cannot allow the world’s most advanced computing technology to be used to accelerate military capabilities or surveillance systems that threaten global stability,” said one senior White House official in his official statement.
The impact was felt immediately. Nvidia, which currently controls more than 90% of the AI chip market in China, has now practically lost the space to export its latest graphics card (GPU) products there.
Huawei and Alibaba Play Brains
For China’s technology giant, giving up is not an option. Losing access to Nvidia technology actually triggered a wave of massive investment to secure domestic supply chains and look for other alternatives.
1. Huawei: Relying on the Domestic Ascend Line
Huawei is at the forefront of this fight. This Shenzhen-based company is aggressively promoting its own AI chip, the Ascend 910C (successor of the 910B).
Huawei claims that the computing capability of this local chip is able to match the performance of Nvidia’s high-end graphics cards for training large language models (Large Language Models).
Many local Chinese companies are now starting to shift their orders from Nvidia to Huawei, making it a local hero amidst western sanctions.
2. Alibaba: Cloud Optimization and Strategic Partnerships
As a cloud computing and e-commerce giant, Alibaba relies heavily on AI chips to power their digital infrastructure. Facing new US regulations, Alibaba is taking two paths at once:
Independent Optimization: Maximizes the use of the Hanguang 800 chip developed by their semiconductor division, T-Head.
Vendor Diversification: Alibaba began to form close partnerships with local Chinese chip startups such as Moore Threads and Biren Technology, and bought up the remaining non-US chip stocks available on the global market before regulations completely locked down all access.
Severe Challenges in the Production Sector (Fabrication)
Even though Huawei and Alibaba have succeeded in designing a capable AI chip architecture, China’s biggest challenge lies in the manufacturing process.
The largest chip manufacturing company in China, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), is still having difficulty producing chips with technology below 5 nanometers on a large scale without advanced lithography (EUV) machines from the US or Europe.
As a result, the energy efficiency and production success rate (yield rate) of these local alternative chips are still below the standards of Taiwanese manufacturer TSMC, which is Nvidia’s main partner.
Facing the Future: Forced Technological Independence
The tightening of sanctions by the US is like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, this step succeeded in slowing the pace of AI development in China in the short term.
However, on the other hand, this policy actually became a catalyst (trigger) that accelerated China’s technological independence.
With unlimited financial support from the Beijing central government and high urgency from companies like Huawei and Alibaba, the global technology landscape is slowly starting to split into two ecosystems: the Western Ecosystem driven by Nvidia and the US, and the Eastern Ecosystem driven independently by China.***
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