Reuters reported on October 20, 2026 that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have together ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 cards, worth over $35 billion at about $11,400 a card, according to coverage by The Edge Malaysia. Reuters's sources say total orders from Chinese customers exceed 6 million units, and that Nvidia has told customers it cannot guarantee it can fill them. The numbers are unconfirmed: the three companies did not respond to requests for comment, and the figures rest on unnamed people familiar with the matter.
NVIDIA
AlibabaWhat the RTX PRO 5500 is
The RTX PRO 5500 is a workstation-class GPU. It is less powerful than the H200 and the Blackwell-based B300, and it is described as among the most powerful Nvidia chips still available to Chinese buyers. The B300 is barred from sale to Chinese customers and H200 exports require case-by-case licensing. Its specifications are said to resemble the RTX 6000D, a card Nvidia launched in mid-2025 that has since been discontinued, with its market price in China reportedly doubling.
Chinese companies mainly want the cards for inference, running trained models, according to three sources. That is consistent with how the constraint works: inference is less sensitive than frontier training to peak interconnect bandwidth, so a lower-tier card can still be useful for serving many users.
The gap between orders and supply
RTX PRO 5500: orders against reported supply
Cards, in millions. Figures come from unnamed sources cited by Reuters.
Source: Reuters, October 20, 2026, via The Edge Malaysia. Allocation to customers was reported at 5% to 10% of requests.
The reported figures imply a mismatch of a kind that rarely resolves through price alone. One source said Nvidia could produce no more than 3 million of these cards globally in 2027. If that is right, the three firms' orders alone would equal the entire reported global output, and total Chinese demand would be about double it. A separate source said partners might receive only 5% to 10% of requested quantities. Applying that range to the 3 million-plus orders would imply roughly 150,000 to 300,000 cards, a calculation this article makes from the reported figures rather than a number any source gave.
If the reported figures hold, orders from three companies would equal the whole reported 2027 production run.
Analysis of figures reported by Reuters via The Edge Malaysia
Why 2027 capacity is the constraint
Reuters reports that from 2027 Nvidia is expected to shift much of its TSMC capacity to its Rubin platform. That sets up a trade-off. Wafer capacity is finite, and each wafer allocated to a workstation-class card for one market is not allocated to higher-margin data-centre products. TSMC said in its recent results that AI chip demand remains far above its supply capability, so the pressure on allocation is consistent with the wider supply picture.
The timeline
- October 13, 2026: Shenzhen-listed Tansun Technology filed that it agreed to buy 20,000 RTX PRO 5500 cards from an unidentified counterparty.
- October 20, 2026: Reuters reported the larger orders.
- December 2026: Nvidia expects to send early samples to customers.
- Q1 2027: Commercial deliveries are expected to begin.
What it suggests about China's AI compute
Three points follow, each labelled as analysis. First, demand for deployable inference capacity in China looks large enough that a tier-two card attracts orders in the millions, which fits other reporting on Nvidia's declining China share. Second, buyers face a rationing outcome regardless of intent, so domestic accelerators are likely to absorb some of the unmet demand. Third, the order book is a statement of intent, not revenue: allocations, licences and delivery timing can all change the outcome.
Nvidia's spokesperson, quoted by Reuters, said Chinese workstation chip producers have shown "unprecedented growth since 2022." Nvidia's next earnings report, which would show how much China contributes, is the next hard data point. Organisations that serve users in more than one region often keep their model layer portable across hardware and providers, one of the reasons a model-agnostic platform like Metir exists.
What to watch next
- Whether Nvidia or the buyers confirm any of the quantities.
- Whether licences or export rules change the card's availability.
- The December sample shipments and Q1 2027 delivery volumes.
Sources:
- The Edge Malaysia: ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent order Nvidia GPUs, citing Reuters (October 20, 2026)
- AI Weekly: AI News Today, October 21, 2026
Image credits
Header and in-body image: Asus graphics card with an Nvidia GeForce 7600, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. It is a generic illustration of a GPU board, not the RTX PRO 5500.