Chinese AI chipmakers hike prices up to 50% amid HBM shortage

Chinese AI chipmakers including Huawei and Cambricon have sharply raised prices for current and next-generation AI processors, as a worldwide shortage of high-bandwidth memory drives up costs and squeezes efforts to build domestic alternatives to Nvidia ↗ 0.90% chips.

Price Hikes Across the Board

Huawei has lifted the indicated price of its Ascend 950DT accelerator card — which integrates an AI processor with memory and other components — to above 250,000 yuan (roughly $37,255), according to a Reuters exclusive report citing three people familiar with the matter. The increase represents a jump of 20 percent to 50 percent from prices quoted to customers just two months ago, depending on contract terms. The 950DT, Huawei's most advanced AI chip, is expected to become available in the fourth quarter of 2026.thestandard+1

Cambricon has repriced its next-generation chip, tentatively called the 690, at 20 to 30 percent above levels indicated two months ago, while smaller rivals MetaX and Iluvatar CoreX have made similar increases. Older Huawei products have not been spared: the Ascend 950PR has climbed roughly 30 percent to above 80,000 yuan since the start of the year, and the Ascend 910C has risen from about 90,000 yuan to more than 110,000 yuan.reuters+3

A Grey-Market Bottleneck

The price hikes reflect how the global HBM shortage is reverberating through China's AI industry as Beijing presses companies to replace Nvidia products with domestically made alternatives. The advanced HBM market is dominated by SK Hynix ↗ 1.92%, Samsung Electronics, and Micron Technology ↗ 2.77%. Since Washington tightened controls on exports of certain advanced HBM products to China in December 2024, Chinese chipmakers have increasingly relied on grey-market channels to secure supplies, where memory typically costs several times what buyers outside China pay. Because memory accounts for a large share of an AI accelerator's production cost, those inflated prices feed directly into finished cards.cryptobriefing+2

The supply constraints are also forcing allocation reshuffles. Iluvatar CoreX has doubled its GPU shipments to ByteDance to 100,000 units this year, even diverting chips earmarked for internal use to meet the TikTok developer's needs, Reuters reported.thestandard

Competitive Risks for Korean Chipmakers

The squeeze has broader implications for the semiconductor landscape. Speaking at the 2026 KB Financial Group Korea Conference on September 9, former Bank of Korea governor Changyong Rhee warned that Chinese firms, flush with cash from rising memory prices, could use any future downturn to expand capital spending and rapidly narrow the technology gap with Korean rivals. He noted that the current boom partly reflects U.S. sanctions that have limited China's access to ASML ↗ 2.81% advanced lithography equipment, and cautioned that the competitive landscape could shift if geopolitical conditions change. The Kospi reclaimed the 7,000 level on September 9, lifted by semiconductor shares including SK Hynix, which finished 3.51 percent higher — even as the underlying supply dynamics point to a contest that is far from settled.sedaily