Facing US export controls on advanced semiconductors, Chinese AI chipmakers are striving for self-reliance, rethinking their design strategies between GPUs and ASICs to challenge Nvidia's market dominance.

Under the weight of sustained US export controls on advanced semiconductors, China’s AI chipmakers are battling to forge a self-reliant silicon ecosystem capable of breaking Nvidia’s stranglehold on the market. At the centre of this rivalry is a fundamental design debate: Should the country rely on the versatile graphics processing unit (GPU) or pivot to the highly specialised application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)? The fight is no longer about finding a single Nvidia clone; it is about....