Macquarie initiated research coverage on five Chinese companies building chips for artificial intelligence applications.
The timing is deliberate. China’s domestic AI chip industry is navigating a combination of tailwinds: sustained government policy support, a wave of fresh IPOs, and a captive market created largely by U.S. export restrictions that have cut off access to Nvidia’s highest-end hardware.
Who’s in the race
Macquarie analyst Eugene Hsiao led the coverage initiation, focusing on companies building AI accelerators for the Chinese market. The names gaining the most attention in this space include Huawei, Cambricon, Hygon, Biren, and MetaX.
Huawei is projected to capture roughly 50% of China’s domestic AI chip market by 2026, according to Morgan Stanley data. The company has invested heavily in its Ascend chip series as a direct substitute for Nvidia’s A100 and H100 GPUs, which are now effectively off-limits under U.S. export rules.
