Chinese tech giants order about $35 billion of Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 GPUs as demand outstrips supply

Summary

Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance have together bought about $35 billion worth of Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 workstation GPUs, according to reports, as China's technology giants seek compute to power their AI ambitions. Tom's Hardware reports that the export-compliant cards are being ordered in volumes far above Nvidia's planned production, and its headline cites about 3 million cards ordered alongside warnings that only about 10 percent of orders can be fulfilled. Semafor, citing Reuters, reports that the three companies have ordered tens of billions of dollars' worth of Nvidia chips as China's compute-hungry tech giants turn to the US.

Timeline

1. Tom's Hardware

   20 Oct 2026, 12:10 UTCSource ↗

   Tom's Hardware reports that Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance have bought $35 billion worth of export-compliant Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 workstation GPUs, with demand far exceeding Nvidia's planned production.

2. Semafor

   20 Oct 2026, 22:44 UTCSource ↗

   Semafor, citing Reuters, reports that Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent have together ordered tens of billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips as China's compute-hungry tech giants turn to the US.