China's most advanced large language models are still being built on Nvidia silicon, four years after Washington first restricted chip exports to Beijing. The reason is not a shortage of domestic hardware. It is the sheer cost of rewriting the software that makes AI training possible.

Chinese accounts for just 1.3% of global web content. Beijing is now treating data as strategic infrastructure, with a 2028 plan to build national AI datasets.

High transition costs are keeping AI developers in China reliant on Nvidia chips.