China AI chips rise as HBM costs bite

Huawei’s Ascend 950DT is now indicated above 250,000 yuan ($37,255), 20–50% above quotes from two months ago, while Cambricon’s planned 690 is up 20–30%, according to TrendForce’s report on the HBM-driven repricing. The pressure is not a clean demand signal: scarce high-bandwidth memory and export controls are feeding cost into Chinese accelerators, so domestic alternatives to Nvidia are getting more expensive before the 950DT’s Q4 2026 availability. Infrastructure buyers should refresh China-local cluster budgets and avoid assuming policy preference equals lower TCO; DeepSeek’s Huawei-based chip strategy now faces a pricier bill of materials.