Did 20-40% of Nvidia Sales Reach China? What Filings Show

The claim that 20% to as much as 40% of Nvidia’s revenue came from exports rerouted to China traces to a short seller’s May report quoting an unnamed former employee, SBS News reported on 14 November in a Korean-language fact check. Nvidia’s own filings put revenue from customers headquartered in China, including Hong Kong, at $19,677 million in fiscal 2026, or 9.1% of the total, by our arithmetic.

Those filings cannot settle the claim either way. Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 annual report says “The end customer and shipping location may be different from our customers’ headquarters location”, so no line in it shows how much hardware reached China. For scale, 20% to 40% of fiscal 2026 revenue would be $43.2 billion to $86.4 billion, by our arithmetic.

Business Pill · Concentration Explained

A short Business Engineer explainer on concentration, when a few big pieces make up most of a total, as the Singapore line once did. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Nvidia or this claim.

Where the 20% to 40% Figure Comes From

SBS said the figure was spreading on social media. Its fact-check team traced the wording to a 40-page report published on 13 May by Culper Research, titled ‘NVIDIA: The China Problem’. The Culper report opens: “We are short Nvidia”.

The report says “One former Nvidia Director-level employee we spoke with estimated that” 20% to 40% of Nvidia’s data center business “remained functionally Chinese even after the April 2025 restrictions took effect”. It also quotes a former Nvidia employee: “The China market brings in about 20% to 40% of revenues… They’ll never disclose the numbers, of course, but it’s closer to 40%”. Culper’s own view, in its summary, is that “over 20% of Nvidia’s FY 2026 compute revenues remained driven by China”.

In our translation, SBS wrote that the source was “only an interview with an anonymous former executive-level Nvidia employee, who did not give a precise basis”. SBS added that, in context, the range appears to count everything tied to China, including cloud rentals that are not export-controlled, rather than rerouted exports alone. Its conclusion, in our translation: “we could not confirm sufficient evidence to support the claim that rerouted exports to China amount to 20 to 40% of Nvidia’s total revenue”.

What Nvidia’s Filings Show

Until mid-2025, Nvidia reported revenue by where customers were billed. Its fiscal 2025 annual report put $23,684 million in Singapore, 18.1% of $130,497 million, and $17,108 million, 13.1%, in China including Hong Kong, by our arithmetic. Singapore and Other together came to 24.2%. The same report says “Customers use Singapore to centralize invoicing while our products are almost always shipped elsewhere” and “Shipments to Singapore were less than 2% of fiscal year 2025 total revenue”.

The last billing-basis figures cover the six months to 27 July 2025: Singapore billed $19,173 million, or 21.1% of revenue, and Singapore plus Other 24.9%, by our arithmetic. For that half, Nvidia’s 10-Q says “Over 99% of controlled Data Center compute revenue billed to Singapore was for orders from U.S.-based customers”. Our piece on the Singapore billing line and our export-rules explainer follow that line quarter by quarter.

In the quarter to October 2025, Nvidia switched to counting revenue by customer headquarters. Its 10-Q says billing location “often reflected a customer’s centralized invoicing location, even though our products were almost always shipped elsewhere”. The recast table has no Singapore line; our recount piece shows where that revenue moved. On the new count, China including Hong Kong was 19.2% of fiscal 2025 revenue, 9.1% of fiscal 2026 and 7.0% of the six months to 26 July 2026, per the latest 10-Q, by our arithmetic.

The Range the Filings Allow

The filed line. The China line is 9.1% of fiscal 2026 revenue. It counts sales to customers headquartered in China, including Hong Kong, not where chips ended up.

An extreme reading. Customers headquartered outside both the US and China, the Taiwan and Other lines, brought in $46,644 million in fiscal 2026, 21.6% of revenue. Even if every dollar of that had served China, adding it to the China line gives 30.7%, by our arithmetic. A 40% figure would therefore need revenue from US-headquartered customers too, which the filings cannot trace.

Using Nvidia’s own estimate. The fiscal 2026 annual report says “we estimate 76% of Data Center revenue from Taiwan-headquartered customers was attributed to end customers based in the United States and Europe”. Applying the remaining 24% to the whole Taiwan line, an upper bound, gives $10,163 million; with the China and Other lines that is $34,139 million, 15.8% of fiscal 2026 revenue, by our arithmetic. Nvidia does not say where that remainder ends up.

The history. Before the October 2023 rules, Nvidia’s own 10-Q said “Our sales to China and other affected destinations, derived from products that are now subject to licensing requirements, have consistently contributed approximately 20-25% of Data Center revenue over the past few quarters”. Those were sales Nvidia reported at the time.

Another estimate. New Street Research put as much as 10% of Nvidia’s revenue as coming directly or indirectly from China, CNBC reported on 9 November, $37 billion to $47 billion of the $411 billion fiscal 2027 consensus. It split that into 6% of “legal sales” into China and Hong Kong and 4% booked outside China; our piece on the New Street estimate has the detail. SBS put the second part at about $15 billion; 4% of $411 billion is $16.4 billion, by our arithmetic.

The Structural Read

As we read the Singapore footnotes, Nvidia has twice told investors in its filings that Singapore-billed products mostly went elsewhere: under 2% of fiscal 2025 revenue shipped to Singapore, and over 99% of controlled Data Center compute billed there in the first half of fiscal 2026 was for orders from U.S.-based customers.

As we read the arithmetic, even counting every dollar from customers headquartered outside the US and China as China-linked, the fiscal 2026 table tops out at 30.7%; a 40% figure needs revenue from US-headquartered customers that the filings cannot trace.

Three Implications

FOR NVIDIA INVESTORS Nvidia reports third-quarter results on 17 November; the 10-Q will carry the next headquarters-basis table and the China line, which was 7.0% of revenue in the six months to 26 July 2026, by our arithmetic.

FOR READERS OF VIRAL FIGURES Ask who made the number and how. The 20% to 40% range traces to an unnamed former employee quoted by Culper Research, which disclosed a short position; SBS said the source gave no precise basis.

FOR EXPORT-CONTROL WATCHERS The filings measure billing and headquarters, not end use. Our guide to the export rules in force covers the bills that would change what must be tracked.

The Business Engineer Lens

This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The AI Supercycle.

The framework describes its governance layer as: “Capability gating inside labs, procurement frameworks inside enterprises, export controls between nation-states, litigation over contested deployments.”

As we read it, the gap between where chips are billed and where they end up is the measurement problem at that layer. The framework does not discuss Nvidia’s filings or this claim.

What Is Not Established

Nvidia’s filings do not show how much of its hardware reached China or served Chinese users. Any 20% to 40% figure is an estimate by whoever made it: here, an unnamed former employee quoted by Culper, which disclosed a short position. SBS said that source gave no precise basis for it.

SBS counted three US Justice Department announcements this year of Nvidia chips allegedly routed to China through third countries; charges are allegations, not findings. Reuters reported on 12 November that Chinese AI companies are trying to rent Nvidia-powered capacity outside China, as our piece on the cloud rentals sets out; the filings do not measure that either. Our Megaspeed explainer covers the Singapore probe. Nvidia told investors at its 2026 annual meeting, CNBC reported: “We are committed to compliance with all U.S. laws and work in collaboration with the entire AI ecosystem and US government”. We did not contact Nvidia for this piece.

The Bottom Line

The 20% to 40% figure is a quoted guess from an unnamed former employee in a short seller’s report, as SBS found. Nvidia’s filings put customers headquartered in China at 9.1% of fiscal 2026 revenue and say Singapore-billed products almost always shipped elsewhere, but they do not track where chips end up. Nvidia reports third-quarter results on 17 November, with the next geographic table. Our guide to the export rules in force, our piece on the neocloud sell-off and the first piece on the exit carry the wider story.