Epoch puts Huawei below four per cent of Nvidia
Epoch AI estimates that in 2026 Huawei will produce less than 4 per cent as much AI compute as Nvidia: 1.5 million units against 5.9 million.
Why it matters
The claim that China is closing the chip gap was turned into a compute-share estimate with a stated method, and the gap proved wider than a unit count suggests.
The report was published on 4 September 2026. Epoch estimates that in 2026 Huawei will produce less than 4 per cent as much AI compute as Nvidia. The median estimate is 1.5 million units for Huawei against 5.9 million for Nvidia; the compute-share gap is wider than the unit gap because per-chip performance differs. Using only Chinese-made high-bandwidth memory its output could remain around 1 per cent of Nvidia’s through 2028. The report examines why Huawei's roadmap will not close the performance gap and why greater domestic memory production will not make up the volume gap. The company's long-term bet on LogicFolding is treated separately: the first Ascend chip to use it is set to arrive in 2030. The page carries an update of 24 September 2026.