Chinese Tech Firms ByteDance, Alibaba & Tencent Order Over ₹3.3 Lakh Crore Of US-Based Nvidia's Export-Compliant RTX PRO 5500 Chips

ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have together ordered more than 3 million of Nvidia's new RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards, with a combined list price above $35 billion (approx Rs. 3.3 lakh crore). The Chinese firms are rushing to buy a weaker chip that complies with US export rules. Nvidia has warned that it may not be able to fill the orders.

Demand outstrips planned output

Reuters reports that Nvidia has told customers and partners it cannot promise to meet the orders, because demand from Chinese technology companies is far larger than the volumes it plans to make.

The report says that partners were told they might receive just 5 percent to 10 percent of the quantities they asked for. Another said Nvidia has signalled it can make no more than 3 million RTX PRO 5500 cards worldwide in 2027. Total orders from Chinese customers have passed 6 million. The cards in the three companies' orders are reportedly priced at about $11,400 each.

What is RTX PRO 5500 chip?

The RTX PRO 5500 is a workstation chip built for professional desktop machines, not the large data-centre clusters that run Nvidia's top AI processors. Reuters noted it is still among the most powerful Nvidia products Chinese buyers can legally get. US export rules bar sales of Nvidia's Blackwell-based B300 data-centre chip to China, while exports of the Hopper-based H200 are assessed case by case and carry licensing conditions.

Chinese companies plan to use the cards mainly for AI inference. That means running trained models to produce chatbot responses, which generally takes less computing power than training. According to product specifications, the RTX PRO 5500 performs similarly to the RTX 6000D, a cut-down chip Nvidia launched in mid-2025 to meet US restrictions.

Supply squeeze from 2027

The shortfall reflects both strong demand and Nvidia's manufacturing priorities. From 2027, Nvidia is expected to give most of its capacity at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to Rubin, its next-generation platform for large data centres, rather than to products like the RTX PRO 5500. Nvidia has told customers to expect early samples in December and commercial deliveries from the first quarter of 2027.