Nvidia H200 Chinese demand 2026: Scrambling to close a 1.3 million unit supply gap

2 million orders against just 700,000 in stock. Nvidia is in a race against time as Chinese tech giants' hunger for AI power hits a fever pitch. To bridge this massive deficit, the chipmaker has reportedly approached its manufacturing partner TSMC to aggressively ramp up production of its high-performance H200 AI chips.

The Nvidia H200 Chinese demand 2026 surge and TSMC’s role

Chinese technology firms have placed orders exceeding 2 millionH200 units for the 2026 fiscal year. However, internal sources indicate that Nvidia's current inventory is languishing at around 700,000 units. This discrepancy highlights a desperate push by Chinese players to secure advanced silicon before potential further tightening of U.S. export controls.

Production bottlenecks and market implications

While the exact volume of Nvidia's additional order from TSMC isn't public yet, analysts expect the pressure on advanced packaging capacities like CoWoS to intensify. If Nvidia can't secure enough slots, the supply-demand mismatch could drive up secondary market prices and accelerate China's efforts to develop domestic alternatives, despite the performance gap.