More Than 6 Million Cards Sought in China as Nvidia Faces Supply Shortage
Key Facts
The announcement coincided with a Reuters report that Chinese orders for more than 6 million RTX PRO 5500 cards were being placed, while sources said available supply might meet only a limited portion of requested volumes. ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent together sought more than 3 million cards, worth more than $35 billion in total. Reuters reported that Nvidia had told customers and partners it could not guarantee fulfillment of the orders because demand from Chinese technology companies exceeded planned production. The news combines a legal development over the company’s past disclosures with demand for AI hardware facing a practical supply constraint.
The class-action lawsuit concerns allegations that Nvidia did not adequately inform investors of its reliance on the volatile cryptocurrency-mining market, and that its statements about channel inventory and mining’s impact on demand for graphics processing units were misleading. According to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the allegations covered the period from May 10, 2017, to November 14, 2018. Nvidia said the court approved class certification on March 25, 2026, covering investors who purchased or acquired the stock between August 10, 2017, and November 15, 2018. The dispute dates back to a period when cryptocurrency-mining profitability fell, after Nvidia’s revenue failed to meet expectations, according to the Associated Press, which reported that the stock declined 28% in 2018.
A separate regulatory case is distinct from the shareholder lawsuit. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Nvidia agreed in 2022 to a cease-and-desist order and to pay a civil penalty of $5.5 million over inadequate disclosure of cryptocurrency mining’s impact on its gaming business. The settlement was reached without Nvidia admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, according to the agency’s statement. This case is not the agreement reported by investors in California, which concerns a separate class action. In its coverage of the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision, the Associated Press quoted a representative for investors as calling the ruling a “victory for corporate accountability,” adding that “misleading shareholders undermines confidence in our markets.” The announced settlement puts the historical disclosures back in focus, while current card demand centers on AI uses in China.
According to Reuters, each card costs about $11,400, explaining why the combined orders are worth more than $35 billion. The card is designed for workstations and powerful professional computers, not the large data-center clusters that use Nvidia’s most advanced processors. Sources said Chinese companies primarily aim to use the cards for AI inference, or running trained models to generate chatbot responses. The orders come amid U.S. restrictions on sales of Nvidia chips to China: the B300 card, based on the Blackwell architecture, is not permitted for sale to Chinese buyers, while exports of the H200, based on Hopper, are subject to case-by-case review and licensing conditions. An Nvidia spokesperson said producers of chips and workstation cards in China had experienced “unprecedented growth since 2022.”
Expected production capacity remains a key determinant of the quantities that may reach buyers. Reuters quoted sources as saying partners may receive only between 5% and 10% of the quantities they ordered. The sources also said Nvidia indicated it might produce no more than 3 million RTX PRO 5500 cards worldwide in 2027. That production ceiling is below total Chinese orders, which exceeded 6 million cards, as well as the more than 3 million cards sought by the three companies. Reuters reported that the company told customers it expected initial samples to arrive in December 2026, with commercial deliveries set to begin in the first quarter of 2027. Nvidia shares closed at $210.96 on October 23, 2026, according to EL7 data.