Chinese GPU makers race on supernodes as buyers weigh cost and ecosystem
At the 26th China International Industry Expo, where the integrated-circuit zone debuted as a standalone exhibition, domestic GPU vendors focused on rack-scale "supernodes": MetaX showed its 64-GPU fully interconnected Xijing S600 plus a 16-GPU S600 Lite, Enflame showed the Yunsui ESL64-O built with ZTE, and Iluvatar CoreX packed 144 GPUs and 18 CPUs into one 44U rack, saying the TianGai 300 IXL144 reaches 100-nanosecond single-hop latency and a 15% effective bandwidth gain in certain MoE All-to-All scenarios (all vendor claims). Citing an IDC report via Reuters, the article says China's data-center AI accelerator shipments reached 2.008 million units in the first half of 2026, with Nvidia at 678,000 (34%) and Huawei at 572,000 (28%), while China GPU shipments fell 26% year on year to 991,000 units and other AI accelerator types rose nearly 80% to 1.016 million. The report argues that beyond performance and price, stable supply, software ecosystem maturity and the ability to bring real customers and revenue to compute centers will shape commercialization, with vendors ultimately answering how to lower customers' total cost of ownership.
Supernodes are becoming the main battleground for domestic AI compute, but adoption will hinge on ecosystem, supply and customer returns rather than GPU counts per rack.