Nvidia takes Chinese orders for Vera CPU

Nvidia has begun taking orders from Chinese clients for its new Vera central processing unit, a strategic move to re-enter a market where its share of GPU sales has collapsed to nearly zero. The company told customers the chips could be available as early as August, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

The initiative represents a significant pivot for the chipmaker, which has seen its advanced graphics processing units effectively blocked from the Chinese market. While U.S. export controls have restricted sales of Nvidia's most powerful AI accelerators, a separate obstacle emerged last year. Approximately 10 Chinese firms received U.S. licenses to purchase Nvidia's H200 GPU, but not a single unit was delivered because Chinese authorities withheld their own approval, preferring to nurture domestic suppliers like Huawei.

The Vera CPU, by contrast, currently faces lighter U.S. export restrictions, as advanced CPUs have not been classified at the same risk level as AI training GPUs. Unveiled in March 2026 and now in full production, the Vera is Nvidia's first standalone CPU, built on Arm architecture and designed for "agentic" AI workloads that involve tasks like...