Chinese SI chips get 20–50% more expensive in two months amid HBM memory shortage
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Publication time restored from the build log. . Updated: .
China has learned to make its own SI chips but has run into memory — independence from Nvidia currently has to be paid for at a noticeably higher price.
According to Reuters, Huawei, Cambricon, MetaX and Iluvatar CoreX have raised prices on current- and next-generation accelerators. The Huawei Ascend 950DT now costs more than 250 thousand yuan (about $37 thousand), the Ascend 950PR rose from ~60 to 80+ thousand yuan, and the 910C from ~90 to 110+ thousand; Cambricon raised prices by 20–30%. The main cause is the global shortage of high-bandwidth HBM memory, which Chinese companies are forced to buy on the gray market at several times the price. CXMT has tested its own HBM3 and plans to start production in 2026.
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