Nvidia was reported by the Financial Times on 3 November 2026 to have asked its data-centre and cloud customers worldwide to sell at least 51% of the services under new contracts to non-Chinese companies, leaving no more than 49% for Chinese customers. The report, citing five people familiar with the matter, said the requirement had been passed on verbally by Nvidia's sales and regional teams, with no written notice, and applied only to future contracts. Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied the report to Agence France-Presse, and Reuters initially said it could not independently verify it. This is a sourced report from a mainstream financial newspaper, not a formal rule published by Nvidia.
The target is the indirect route of renting computing power
The customers in question are mainly cloud providers and so-called neoclouds that buy Nvidia chips in bulk and rent out the computing power. Chinese companies do not buy the cards directly; they rent capacity on clouds based elsewhere, and that channel is what the reported requirement is aimed at. The report does not say whether the 51% is measured by revenue, computing capacity or customer numbers, nor how a company counts as Chinese, nor what would happen if the requirement were breached. Those gaps mean it is not yet possible to judge whether this is a hard quota or a verbal nudge towards a more diversified customer mix. A follow-up report by The Information said Nvidia's intention was to encourage a broader customer mix, not a mandatory restriction.
What the various statements leave is still a question mark
Nvidia's statement to AFP did not address the 51% figure, saying only that data centres and clouds built on American chips are the foundation that American model and application makers need to compete worldwide, and that America cannot win the AI race unless American AI infrastructure wins worldwide. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said when asked that she was not aware of the matter. In the background, the Financial Times said Nvidia had already cut its list of approved Asian buyers by more than half in July, and the US Commerce Department issued related guidance in May. Nvidia is due to report its next quarterly results on 17 November, when its stated approach to revenue from the Chinese market may be the first public checkpoint for following up on this report.
