Nvidia Pitches Vera CPU to Chinese Clients Like Alibaba and ByteDance, Eyeing August Delivery

Nvidia Returns to China With a New Kind of Chip

Nvidia has begun courting Chinese clients with its new Vera CPU, telling companies including Alibaba and ByteDance that orders can be placed now for delivery as early as August, according to an exclusive Reuters report citing three people familiar with the matter. The move marks a fresh attempt by Nvidia to rebuild its presence in China, where CEO Jensen Huang said in October that the company's market share had "effectively fallen to zero" amid US export controls and Beijing's push for technological self-reliance.

Built for the Age of AI Agents

Vera is Nvidia's first standalone CPU designed specifically for agentic AI — autonomous systems that carry out tasks without constant human intervention. Now in full production, the Arm-based chip features 88 custom cores and is built for the background computing that AI agents depend on. Nvidia claims it runs up to 1.8 times faster than comparable x86 processors from rivals such as AMD and Intel. Some Chinese clients have already expressed interest, according to Reuters. A single Vera processor is expected to cost "well north of" $20,000 before bulk discounts, while a fully outfitted rack of 256 chips could total around $10 million depending on memory configuration, per SemiAnalysis estimates cited in the report.

The H200 Backdrop

The pitch comes as Nvidia's H200 shipments to China remain stalled. Although the US cleared around 10 Chinese firms to purchase the H200 earlier this year, and China gave the green light to ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent to buy over 400,000 units in January, no deliveries have been made and Chinese regulatory approval is still pending. The Vera push gives Nvidia a fresh entry point while those GPU sales stay frozen.

A $20 Billion Revenue Bet

Nvidia's CFO Colette Kress said during the company's May earnings call that it expects nearly $20 billion in standalone CPU revenue this fiscal year — a figure that would make Nvidia the world's leading CPU supplier by revenue, surpassing both AMD and Intel. Huang has described Vera as the company's "primary growth catalyst," opening access to a $200 billion total addressable market that he has confirmed includes China. The sales push intensifies Nvidia's competition with AMD and Intel in the server CPU market, where both are racing to supply processors for AI data centres. Whether Chinese regulators will permit large-scale purchases remains the critical unknown, as Beijing balances its AI ambitions against a policy of promoting domestic chip development.