ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 cards worth over $35bn, Reuters reports
Reuters calls the card a less powerful, export-compliant workstation chip. One of its sources says Nvidia may fill only a small share of the orders, with deliveries from early 2027.
Why it matters: Three of China's biggest tech groups are reported to be buying Nvidia hardware on a large scale, using a chip Reuters describes as export-compliant. Whether Nvidia can supply them, and whether Washington lets it, will shape both its China revenue and the Chinese labs' computing.
ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have together ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia's RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards, with a combined list price above $35 billion, or about $11,400 a card, Reuters reported on 20 October in an exclusive citing two people familiar with the matter. The Switchboard read the Reuters text as carried on Euronext; Semafor also reported the headline figure.
According to Reuters, the RTX PRO 5500 is a workstation chip, less powerful than Nvidia's H200 and B300; the B300 cannot be sold to Chinese buyers under US export controls. Reuters' sources said total Chinese orders for the card exceed 6 million. One source said partners might receive only 5% to 10% of what they asked for, and another said Nvidia could make no more than 3 million of the cards worldwide in 2027.
Nvidia told customers to expect samples in December and commercial deliveries from the first quarter of 2027, Reuters reported, and the Chinese buyers plan to use the cards mainly for inference, running models rather than training them. Reuters also cited a 13 October filing in which Shenzhen-listed Tansun Technology agreed to buy 20,000 of the cards. The three buyers did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
None of these figures comes from Nvidia or the buyers. They are Reuters' report, and the orders are not contracts on the record.
- Reported ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have ordered more than 3 million RTX PRO 5500 cards with a combined list price above $35bn, two people told Reuters. Reuters, via Euronext
- Reported One source told Reuters partners might receive only 5% to 10% of what they ordered; samples are due in December and deliveries from the first quarter of 2027. Reuters, via Euronext
- Reported Semafor carries Reuters' report that Chinese tech firms bought more than $35bn of Nvidia chips. Semafor
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