Nvidia falls despite report of $35B+ in RTX Pro chip orders from Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance; supply doubts cap upside
What happened
Reuters reported, citing two people familiar, that Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance have ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 graphics cards carrying a collective sticker price above $35 billion. A source told the outlet Nvidia may be able to fulfill only a tiny portion of the order — demand that exceeds planned production, which Nvidia has told partners it cannot guarantee filling. The RTX Pro 5500 is a workstation chip on the Blackwell architecture (launched September), tailored for high-end professional computing rather than Nvidia's most advanced data-center GPUs, though it can run AI models and physical simulations. Despite the demand signal, NVDA fell ~0.8% premarket Tuesday, showing investors are treating supply constraints and China share loss as the binding constraint, not demand.
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Start your free 14-day trialWho’s affected & sources
Who’s affected
- Nvidia (NVDA): down ~0.8% premarket, >10% lost in two weeks, below 50-day moving average
- Chinese buyers: Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (TCEHY), ByteDance — signaling demand resilience despite export rules
- AI hardware complex: MU, INTC, MRVL, AMD down 1.5-2.5% premarket; chip sector broadly red
- Huawei (unlisted): the domestic rival gaining share in China's AI chip market
Sources