NVIDIA Faces Rising Competition in China as Huawei Prepares Major HiSilicon Breakthrough

NVIDIA's stronghold in China's ADAS chip market is being challenged by domestic competitors, including NIO and Huawei’s HiSilicon. With new chip developments and potential breakthroughs on the horizon, NVIDIA’s $12 billion revenue outlook in China faces increasing uncertainty.

Rising Domestic Competition Threatens NVIDIA’s Dominance in China’s Booming ADAS Chip Market

NVIDIA's DRIVE Orin System-on-a-Chip (SoC) plays a crucial role in the rapidly growing Chinese automotive market, enabling various original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to deploy customized Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for intelligent mobility. However, this dominance is now under threat from rising domestic competition. Huawei's chip design division, HiSilicon, is set to announce several significant advancements at its upcoming Connectivity Conference, which could challenge NVIDIA's stronghold in China's AI sector.

According to a report by Wccftech, NVIDIA's DRIVE Orin is a computational powerhouse for intelligent mobility, capable of performing 254 trillion operations per second (TOPS), enabling efficient data processing from sensors like cameras, ultrasound, and LiDAR. For those unfamiliar with Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) chips, they are currently the most popular in China. Still, Tesla uses them exclusively for domestic sales, leaving NVIDIA's DRIVE Orin as the only viable non-domestic option for many Chinese OEMs.

Despite this, NVIDIA's dominance is at risk due to increased domestic competition. In December 2023, NIO introduced its first in-house ADAS chip, the Shenji NX9031, which uses a 5nm process and offers a compute capacity of 1,016 TOPS. Deliveries of this chip are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2025.

NVIDIA's next-generation SoC, the DRIVE Thor, is expected to become commercially available in 2025, boasting a computing capacity of 2,000 TOPS. Meanwhile, Chinese companies XPeng and Li Auto have also developed custom smart mobility chips. These three companies—Li Auto, XPeng, and NIO—account for about 90% of NVIDIA's DRIVE Orin sales in China, according to the Smart Auto Research Institute of the Gaogong Industry Research.

Emerging Chinese Chipmakers and HiSilicon's Anticipated Breakthrough Pose New Challenges for NVIDIA

Additionally, Black Sesame Intelligence is preparing to launch its next-generation ADAS SoC, the Huashan A2000, which offers a computing capacity of over 250 TOPS and is manufactured using a 7nm process. Horizon Robotics is set to introduce its Journey 6 series of ADAS-focused SoCs later this year, with the top-end variant offering 560 TOPS. BYD, a prominent client, is among Horizon Robotics' distinguished partners.

On another front, HiSilicon, Huawei's chip design division, is reportedly gearing up for a significant announcement at the upcoming HiSilicon Full Connectivity Conference on September 9th and 10th. According to DigiTimes, the event is expected to unveil a substantial breakthrough in semiconductor technology, potentially showcasing the highly anticipated Ascend 910C processor, rumored to rival NVIDIA's H100 GPU in performance.

This intensifying competition could have severe implications for NVIDIA's bullish outlook, especially given that the company is projected to generate $12 billion in revenue from China this year.