China Considers Allowing Alibaba, ByteDance to Buy Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500 Chips

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has signaled that it may allow companies such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and ByteDance Ltd to purchase Nvidia Corp's new RTX Pro 5500 chips. This decision comes after the ministry asked several companies, including these two, to report on their plans to buy the high-end graphics processor.

The RTX Pro 5500 is a processor designed for graphics and simulations, but it also supports artificial intelligence services. Unlike Nvidia's top-of-the-line accelerators, it is built on older-generation processes and provides workstation computation at scale.

This move is seen as pragmatic by some analysts, given China's push towards domestic chip self-sufficiency. However, there are still gaps in performance, supply, and the broader AI ecosystem that Nvidia can fill.