중국 AI 칩 가격이 메모리 부족 속에 50% 급등하면서 인프라 비용을 상향시키고 있다.

China's push to develop domestic alternatives to NVIDIA chips has run into significant obstacles. Prices for processors from Huawei and Cambricon have climbed by up to 50% as the country grapples with a critical shortage of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), the specialized component essential for AI chip performance.

The shortage has left Chinese chipmakers and buyers dependent on expensive grey-market channels to source HBM, a constraint that has no immediate resolution. Meanwhile, NVIDIA—barred from direct sales in China by U.S. export controls—ironically maintains a competitive advantage through established supplier relationships that keep costs manageable. The company continues to achieve strong growth in data center revenue across regions where it operates freely.

Rather than prompting shifts in policy, the price pressures in China are expected to accelerate investments in local memory production. This dynamic appears poised to reinforce NVIDIA's dominance in the global AI chip market in the near term, even as Beijing pursues longer-term strategies to reduce its dependence on American technology.