Lei Jun und Jensen Huang stehen nach 12 Jahren wieder zusammen vor der Kamera. NVIDIA startet die Strategie "Chinesische Ökosystem 2.0".

Behind an accidentally exposed group photo, a market offensive and defensive battle worth tens of billions of dollars is unfolding. This seemingly ordinary group photo instantly ignited the tech circle - it has been a full 12 years since the last time the two appeared on stage together.

A group photo of Jensen Huang meeting with Lei Jun

On the stage of the Xiaomi 3 launch event in 2013, Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, not only strongly promoted the Tegra chip installed but also humorously introduced himself as a "Mi fan" and shouted "Long live Xiaomi" to get closer to the users in the audience.

After a 12 - year cycle, with the same protagonists, the industrial landscape has completely changed. In 2025, Jensen Huang set foot on Chinese soil three times within a year, and at this moment, NVIDIA's market value has reached the peak of $4 trillion. Lei Jun led Xiaomi to transform from a mobile phone manufacturer to an intelligent vehicle manufacturer and is now fully committed to building a ten - thousand - card GPU cluster to enter the battlefield of large AI models.

Everything seems accidental, but it also hides the new strategic breakthrough code for NVIDIA in the Chinese market.

From Tegra to Thor, NVIDIA's "flexible penetration" in the Chinese strategy

Jensen Huang's flight itinerary in 2025 outlines NVIDIA's intention to focus on China. In January, he shuttled between Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai, distributing red envelopes of up to 40,000 yuan to employees; in April, he made an urgent visit just when the United States announced restrictions on the export of H20 chips to China; in July, he arrived in Beijing again, setting a new high for the frequency of visits to China by a multinational tech CEO.

Behind the frequent visits to China is a cruel business reality. Affected by the US export controls, NVIDIA lost a cumulative revenue of $13.5 billion in the first two quarters of 2025, while the Chinese market contributes $17.1 billion in annual revenue and is its fourth - largest global market.

Meanwhile, Jensen Huang also brought a key "gift". He announced in Beijing that the US government has approved the export license for the H20 chips to China, and NVIDIA will immediately resume sales.

It is reported that in April 2025, the performance of the H20 chip was about 15% - 30% of that of the H100. After the sales ban in April 2025, NVIDIA suffered a cumulative revenue loss of $13.5 billion in two quarters.

At the same time, a new RTX Pro GPU was released, specially designed for intelligent factories, logistics digital twins, and AI scenarios, fully complying with the US export restriction standards for China.

The picture is from NVIDIA's official website

However, NVIDIA's ambition is not limited to hardware sales. At the Taipei Computex, Jensen Huang announced the opening of the core interconnection technology - the NVLink Fusion architecture to support the integration of third - party CPUs and AI accelerators to build semi - customized AI infrastructure, aiming to break through the bottlenecks in scale and performance of traditional data centers and provide more flexible and optimized system design solutions for cloud service providers and large enterprises.

This technology achieves an ultra - high bandwidth of 900GB/s per link, which is 7 times that of the traditional PCIe 5.0 protocol and can connect GPUs, CPUs, and various customized chips. Through the technology licensing model, NVIDIA is transforming from a hardware supplier to a protocol setter for AI infrastructure, building a flexible ecological moat.

Jensen Huang's statement in a CNN interview, "China already has sufficient computing power and does not need to rely on US technology", also sends a new signal. This is not only a response to US politicians but also implies that NVIDIA is changing its role from a technology monopolist to an ecological co - builder.

AI factories and robots: NVIDIA's Chinese fulcrum for the next trillion - dollar track

The return of the H20 chips and the debut of the RTX Pro are just the first "stop - bleeding" step in NVIDIA's Chinese chess game. Jensen Huang's three trips to Beijing and the detours to the White House for "filing" seem on the surface to be a battle for survival in the multi - billion - dollar market, but in essence, it is an early move to secure a position in the next trillion - dollar track.

When the special - supply chips become "defective products" caught between performance and policies, NVIDIA's ambition has escaped the shackles of hardware and is directly aimed at two future core areas.

The implementation of the "AI factory" strategy in China, from a chip manufacturer to an AI operator

At the Taipei International Computex (COMPUTEX 2025), Jensen Huang started from the perspective of global industrial transformation and emphasized that NVIDIA has broken through the boundaries of traditional semiconductor enterprises and become the core infrastructure provider supporting the AI era.

Moreover, global data centers are undergoing a fundamental reconstruction. Traditional data centers centered on data storage will gradually evolve into "intelligent factories" centered on AI computing, driving industrial value creation through continuous generation of Tokens (intelligent data units).

This transformation, similar to the replacement of steam engines by electricity and the restructuring of information dissemination by the Internet, will redefine the industrial competition landscape in the next decade.

Jin Zhuanglong, the Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said that China is the world's largest manufacturing country, with the added value of the manufacturing industry accounting for about 30% of the global total and ranking first in the world for 14 consecutive years.

In addition, a report from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing shows that in 2024, China's total social logistics volume exceeded 360 trillion yuan for the first time, and China's logistics market scale has ranked first in the world for 9 consecutive years. China, with its inherent scenario advantages, is becoming the testing ground for this strategy.

The terminal ecosystems (mobile phones/cars/IoT) of enterprises such as Xiaomi have become the carriers for the implementation of NVIDIA's edge computing power, completing the closed - loop from the cloud to the vehicle end.

The Chinese springboard for humanoid robots: exchanging manufacturing capabilities for ecological rights

Meanwhile, Jensen Huang defines humanoid robots as "the next trillion - dollar industry", and China is an indispensable fulcrum for its commercialization.

Firstly, there is a breakthrough in the cost dimension. Relevant data shows that currently, the manufacturing cost in China is only 65% of that in the United States. Enterprises such as Xiaomi will provide the supply - chain integration capabilities required for mass - producing robots, further reducing the comprehensive cost.

Secondly, there is technological complementarity. NVIDIA's open - source Isaac GR00T platform solves algorithm simulation, while Chinese enterprises have advantages in mechatronics (such as the 21 - degree - of - freedom joints of Xiaomi's CyberOne).

The picture is from Xiaomi's official website

Thirdly, there are policy dividends. China's 14th Five - Year Plan lists humanoid robots as a disruptive technology, and cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have successively introduced subsidy policies, providing a "compliance testing ground" for NVIDIA to avoid US regulatory risks.

For this reason, NVIDIA delays ecological substitution through technology licensing (NVLink Fusion) and scenario co - construction (AI factory + robots), and locks in China as a partner before the domestic CUDA alternative solutions mature.

When the special - supply chips are on shaky ground due to politics, NVIDIA is placing its bets on a more hidden battlefield. It controls the standards of intelligent infrastructure through the AI factory architecture and ties itself to the manufacturing dividends in China through the robot industry. The resilience of this ecological network will determine whether it can secure a ticket to the next trillion - dollar market in the face of encirclement from all sides.

From "leather - jacket brothers" to strategic allies, the path of symbiosis in geopolitical technology games

Now, Lei Jun and Jensen Huang's "reunion" after 12 years is far more than a nostalgic catch - up.

Carefully observing the details of their outfits - Jensen Huang adheres to his iconic leather - jacket look, and Lei Jun also caused a stir due to his leather - jacket outfit at the Xiaomi 15 Ultra launch event in 2025 (later jokingly referred to as the "leather - jacket brothers").

Behind this external similarity in image is a deep resonance in strategic thinking between the two tech leaders - both are good at capturing technological inflection points and are brave enough to go all - in on new tracks at critical moments.

The enterprises led by the two also show amazing parallel development. Firstly, NVIDIA's market value soared from about $10 billion in 2013 to $4 trillion in 2025, and Xiaomi has also grown from a rising star in the mobile phone industry to a tech giant spanning consumer electronics, automobiles, semiconductors, and other fields; secondly, both companies have completed the transformation from hardware manufacturers to ecological builders.

This similar growth trajectory lays a trust foundation for strategic cooperation. Despite the fact that the cooperation on Tegra in 2013 did not meet expectations, the two sides still maintained a good interactive relationship, reflecting the understanding and respect between entrepreneurs.

And the current external environment further strengthens the strategic value of cooperation. In dealing with US export controls, NVIDIA needs a local partner like Xiaomi to maintain its technological influence; while Xiaomi also needs NVIDIA's computing power support when facing fluctuations in automobile sales and bottlenecks in intelligent driving technology.

This complementary demand for a symbiotic relationship was foreshadowed in Jensen Huang's GTC 2025 speech. He specifically emphasized that "AI agents will completely change knowledge - based work", and Lei Jun may have taken a fancy to this trend and hopes to use NVIDIA's technology to accelerate Xiaomi's intelligent breakthrough in the automotive field.

However, from a macro perspective, NVIDIA's Chinese strategy still faces challenges. With the improvement in the performance of domestic chips such as Huawei's Ascend 910B, Tencent and Baidu have started to "de - NVIDIAize". Moreover, the anti - monopoly investigation of NVIDIA by the Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation in 2024 is still ongoing.

In this situation, cooperating with "neutral" Chinese tech giants such as Xiaomi has become a practical choice for NVIDIA to balance political risks and business interests. For China's tech industry, while pursuing self - control and self - reliance, maintaining connections with the global innovation network also requires a "technology bridge" like NVIDIA.

This article is from the WeChat official account “US Stock Research Society” (ID: meigushe). The author is Jing Song and it is published by 36Kr with authorization.