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NewsMaterial3 min readDisconfirmAI Editorial

Epoch AI Launches Chip Import Tracker: US Holds 72% of Global AI Compute, China's Chip Share Nearly Twice Its Compute Share

Research organization Epoch AI released the AI Chip Imports explorer on October 27, 2026, using customs records from 16 major destinations to estimate the volume of AI compute arriving in various countries. Data shows that of the 27.4 million H100e compute units arriving globally between 2022 and June 2026, 72% arrived in the United States, with its share expanding from 60–63% to 78% in the first half of 2026. China accounted for 18% of chip volumes (including domestic chips) but only 10% of compute, reflecting lower hardware performance.

2026-10-27

Chip designers and cloud service providers rarely disclose which countries their chips are deployed in. This means a fundamental question—where global AI compute is actually located—has long relied on scattered company announcements and industry estimates. Research organization Epoch AI’s AI Chip Imports explorer, released on October 27, 2026, attempts to fill this gap using customs records: starting with monthly import/export data from 16 major destinations, netting out parts transiting only through hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, it estimates the share of remaining server and parts trade related to AI chips, then splits global chip sales estimates by country proportion.

Initial findings show that of the 27.4 million H100e (measured in Nvidia H100 equivalent compute units) arriving globally between 2022 and June 2026, 19.8 million, or 72%, arrived in the United States. The European Union accounted for 5% (1.4 million), Malaysia for 2% (0.7 million), and no other country exceeded 2%. Notably, the US lead has widened: the US received 60–63% of new AI compute annually from 2022 to 2024, rising to 72% in 2025 and 78% in the first half of 2026.

Another set of figures reveals a structural gap between chip volume and compute quality. Including domestic chips, China accounted for 18% of AI chip volumes in the dataset but only 10% of compute (2.6 million H100e). Epoch AI notes that a significant portion of China’s hardware consists of lower-performance chips, including Nvidia H20 chips designed to comply with US export controls, as well as domestic chips from Huawei and Cambricon, which together account for about 40% of China’s total. Counting imports alone, China received 12% of chips and 6% of compute.

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This estimate carries significant uncertainty. Under different assumptions about trade composition, China’s imported compute estimates range from 1.9 million to 4.2 million H100e. The estimate includes chips brought into China in violation of US export controls, provided they appear in China’s own customs records; shipments that go undeclared leave no trace. Epoch AI previously used this same dataset in research on chip smuggling routes via Malaysia.

Methodologically, customs data cross-validates with Epoch AI’s AI Chip Sales data, built from company disclosures and analyst estimates. The two are not fully independent—estimating the value of chips within each server still uses Epoch AI’s own chip prices and product mix—but except for China, trade values come solely from customs data, with no mechanism forcing the two sets of numbers to align. Results show both series grew from under $10 billion per quarter in mid-2023 to nearly $80 billion by mid-2026. Cumulative customs-derived chip spending fell within 4% of the corresponding chip values in sales data, though individual quarters had noise of about 15%. Customs values ran mostly below sales estimates through 2024 and mostly above them after mid-2025, possibly reflecting changes in time from sale to arrival, or chip price fluctuations over a model’s lifecycle while estimates remained fixed.

The tool has clear boundaries. Customs codes generally mix AI and non-AI chips, as well as chips and non-chip components; data reflects when chips arrive rather than when they run, meaning some may not yet be online while others may later move to another country. Countries lacking detailed customs data, such as the UAE and Vietnam, are estimated only from export records of other nations. Chips made and used in Taiwan do not cross borders and are thus not captured; domestic production in China is assumed to remain entirely within the country, but no estimate exists for chips retained in Taiwan.

For readers tracking the geographic distribution of AI infrastructure, this work adds an incrementally updateable public estimation framework, shifting the question of where compute resides from reliance on selective corporate disclosure to independently verifiable observation. Its core findings—the expanding US share and the near-doubling gap between China’s chip volume and compute quality—provide a new quantitative benchmark for understanding AI industry competition, but readers should note all figures are estimates, with particularly wide confidence intervals for China.

Sources

  • epoch.aiEpoch AI↗
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