Nvidia Sheds World’s Most Valuable Tag as China Chip Exports Remain a Trivial Trickle

Nvidia's $4.86T valuation trails Apple's $4.88T as US tariffs and China export limits disrupt AI chip sales, while Huawei emerges as a competitor.

A year-long reign atop the global market-cap leaderboard ended for Nvidia on Friday, as Apple reclaimed the crown. The chip giant closed at 177.46 euros, down 2.14 percent on the day and nearly 4 percent for the week, its market value settling at roughly $4.86 trillion against Apple’s $4.88 trillion. The shift marks more than a cosmetic reshuffling: it crystallises a broader reassessment of how investors value the artificial-intelligence bet.

Behind the headline lies a deeper contradiction. Just days earlier, a U.S. Commerce Department official confirmed that a small volume of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips had been delivered to Chinese customers under a new licensing framework introduced by the Trump administration in December 2025. The official described the volume as “trivial” without naming buyers or quantities. Around ten Chinese firms — including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com — have now received conditional permits, each allowed to buy up to 75,000 chips directly or through authorised distributors. Yet one day after the export clearance, President Trump slapped a 25 percent tariff on the same chips under a national security order. The result: a theoretical channel that so far has generated no meaningful revenue.

Nvidia’s own management has already priced in that reality. On the last earnings call, the company said it was pencilling in “zero revenue from China data-centre business” for the outlook. Chinese demand, however, vastly outstrips supply — technology groups have collectively ordered more than two million H200 chips for 2026, while Nvidia’s total inventory sits at about 700,000 units. Beijing adds its own brakes, telling firms it will only approve H200 purchases in exceptional cases such as university research.

The competitive landscape is shifting too. Huawei unveiled its Ascend-950PR chip in March 2026, claiming roughly 2.8 times the FP4 performance of Nvidia’s H20. The company plans to ship around 750,000 units this year, with mass production starting in April and full delivery capacity expected in the second half of 2026. ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have already opened new procurement talks with Huawei, according to three people familiar with the discussions. U.S. restrictions on advanced chipmaking equipment still constrain Chinese production, but the trend is unmistakable: Nvidia’s pricing power is eroding not only from home-grown efforts at Amazon, Google and Microsoft but also from a resurgent domestic rival.

The broader semiconductor sector mirrors the anxiety. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index has dropped nearly 19 percent from its July record high. While Nvidia has fared better than many peers during the sell-off, the index has actually outperformed the stock year-to-date. Analysts see a maturing AI investment cycle, with money rotating from pure infrastructure plays toward storage chips, data-centre gear and end-user applications. “New market participants could spread the focus away from the Magnificent Seven names to a broader set of companies,” said Benjamin Hall, portfolio strategist at Segal Marco Advisors.

Technically, Nvidia’s medium-term picture remains intact. The stock sits 12.37 percent below its 52-week high of 202.50 euros, but comfortably above its 200-day moving average of 165.34 euros. The relative strength index of 48.8 signals neither overbought nor oversold territory. Yet the stock is now trading below its 50-day average of 181.83 euros, reflecting the near-term uncertainty that the China saga injects.

For now, Nvidia’s fate hinges almost entirely on Western hyperscaler spending. KeyBanc recently raised its price target, citing strong demand and higher CoWoS packaging capacity. The average analyst target of 264.07 euros implies nearly 49 percent upside — a bet that the U.S. and European cloud build-out will continue regardless of China’s trajectory. If export volumes ever move beyond the trivial, and if tariff pressure eases, the bull case could get fresh wind. But if Beijing’s resistance hardens and Huawei’s ramp accelerates through 2026, the China opportunity for Nvidia may shrink to irrelevance. The next concrete signals: new Commerce Department data on actual H200 shipments and progress on the Vera Rubin platform expected later this year.