Twice the Heat, Twice the Ice: Nvidia’s Breakneck Rise and China’s Absence

Nvidia’s FY2027 first-quarter earnings report delivered a stunning global scorecard: revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% year over year, and net profit of $58.3 billion, up 211% year over year. The data center segment, at $75.2 billion with 92% year-over-year growth, became the absolute engine. The Blackwell architecture is rolling out across the board, with demand for AI infrastructure showing “parabolic growth.” The company also issued guidance of $91 billion for the next quarter and announced an $80B share repurchase program. Nvidia is no longer just a chip company—it has become a system-level platform for AI infrastructure.

However, amid this prosperity, China’s presence in the picture is getting thinner. In FY2022, China contributed 26.4% of Nvidia’s revenue; by FY2026, that proportion has plunged to about 9%. In this quarter, Nvidia shipped no data center Hopper-series products to China, while in the same period last year, that product category still generated $4.6 billion in revenue from China. CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged that, due to U.S. export controls, Nvidia has “essentially ceded the China AI chip market to Huawei,” and has fully removed the China market’s contribution from its financial planning.

This contrast reveals deeper structural changes. Nvidia’s surge is fueled by a global AI infrastructure arms race—hyperscale cloud providers and AI model companies are competing to buy its “AI factory” solutions. Meanwhile, China’s contraction is a snapshot of geopolitics reshaping the semiconductor industry’s map. U.S. export controls, accelerating domestic substitution in China (represented by Huawei Ascend), and policies such as “buying Nvidia chips requires pairing with domestic chips” are squeezing Nvidia’s space in China from both the supply and demand sides.

Nvidia’s response strategy is “lose in the east, gain in the mulberry grove in the west.” The company is rolling out a new business via its Vera CPU, targeting nearly $20 billion in annual new revenue, and expects the CPU addressable market to reach $200 billion. Huang said he is eager to return to the China market, but in the short term, “don’t hold any expectations.” Perhaps this is the true reflection of the global tech landscape in the AI era—technology has no borders, but chips have borders. #夏日创作营