ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent have collectively ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 GPUs, Reuters reported on October 20, citing sources. At roughly $11,400 per card**, the potential order value exceeds **$35 billion. But demand far outstrips production plans, and Nvidia has told customers it cannot guarantee full delivery.
The RTX PRO 5500, though below Nvidia's top AI chips, complies with US export rules and remains one of the higher-performance options available to Chinese buyers. Sources say total Chinese customer orders exceed 6 million cards, while Nvidia has told partners it may produce at most 3 million globally in 2027. Some partners were told they may ultimately receive only 5% to 10% of requested volumes.
The RTX PRO 5500 was originally a workstation GPU for professional PCs, not designed for large data center clusters. By contrast, Nvidia's Blackwell-based B300 data center chip is banned from sale to China, and the Hopper-based H200 requires case-by-case review and export license conditions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said export restrictions cut its China AI data center chip share from near-monopoly to nearly zero. Yet this buying wave shows lower-performance, legally shippable products still hold huge opportunity.
Three sources say Chinese firms are buying the RTX PRO 5500 mainly for AI inference—generating chatbot responses from trained models—which needs less compute than training on massive datasets. Per product specs obtained by Reuters, the RTX PRO 5500 performs similarly to the RTX 6000D. When Nvidia launched the RTX 6000D mid-last year, it also met export limits via reduced performance, but major Chinese tech firms showed little initial interest, with some not ordering at all—buyers saw the price-to-performance as poor and expected the US to eventually approve stronger processors. Now, with restrictions persisting and AI compute still scarce, hopes of a green light have faded, making the RTX PRO 5500 a more attractive alternative.
Tight supply reflects both surging demand and Nvidia's production priorities. Two sources say from 2027, Nvidia expects to allocate most of its TSMC capacity to the next-gen Rubin platform for large data centers, not products like the RTX PRO 5500. Nvidia has told customers to expect initial samples in December and commercial delivery starting Q1 2027. Another source says the RTX 6000D is now discontinued, with its China price doubled, further highlighting supply-demand imbalance. ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent, and relevant US and Chinese authorities did not respond to requests for comment; TSMC declined to comment.
ICgoodFind Summary: 3 million orders correspond to $35 billion, yet Nvidia's 2027 global output may reach at most 3 million, and Chinese customers may actually get only 5% to 10% of demand. Under export limits, compliant but de-rated inference cards have become scarce resources—the supply-demand gap matters far more than the order numbers themselves.
