On October 28, China Mobile's procurement and bidding portal published a "Public Notice of Candidate Winning Bidders for the 2026-2027 Centralized Procurement of Next-Generation AI Super-Node Equipment," naming five shortlisted companies and a combined 20,480 accelerator cards. The same day, several industry outlets ran headlines announcing that "five vendors won" an "11.7 billion yuan computing power order."

But in the language of the listed companies' own filings, this stage is still a public notice of candidate winning bidders, not an award.

The tender was issued on September 29. It covers 20,480 AI super-node cards, along with 448 RoCE switches, 72 sets of AI compute storage and 10 sets of distributed file storage. The tenderer is China Mobile Communications Co., Ltd., with China Posts and Telecommunications Appliances Co. acting as procurement agent. According to Communications Industry News, this is China Mobile's second large centralized procurement in the AI super-node category this year.

11.7 Billion Yuan Is Each Bidder's Full-Volume Price, Not a Pot Split Five Ways

The five bids disclosed in the notice (excluding tax) sit remarkably close together:

  • Sichuan Huakun Zhenyu, 11.702 billion yuan, 30% share, 6,144 cards
  • Powerleader Computer, 11.599 billion yuan, 25%, 5,120 cards
  • Zhejiang Huaqi Zhihui, 11.638 billion yuan, 20%, 4,096 cards
  • Baixin Information, 11.702 billion yuan, 15%, 3,072 cards
  • Beijing Shenzhou Kuntai, 11.666 billion yuan, 10%, 2,048 cards

The gap between the highest and lowest bid is 103 million yuan, a relative spread of under 1%. The near-identical pricing comes down to the tender format: the project was not divided into lots, so every bidder had to quote a single total price for all 20,480 cards, with volumes then allocated by share. The 11.7 billion yuan figure is therefore not a pot being split five ways but each bidder's full-volume quote. Multiplying each bid by its allocated share puts the five companies between 1.167 billion and 3.511 billion yuan, for a combined total of roughly 11.66 billion yuan.

One numerical error now circulating is worth flagging: some industry outlets have written the bids as "117.018 billion yuan" and "115.993 billion yuan," an order of magnitude above the 11,701,765,567.91 yuan stated in the notice. It is a slip in converting yuan into the hundred-million-yuan unit.

At 11.66 billion yuan for 20,480 cards, the implied price is about 570,000 yuan per card. That figure includes the accompanying switches and storage, so it is not a bare card price.

All Five Sit Inside Huawei's Partner Ecosystem

Not one of the five is a newcomer. According to Kunpeng server partner tiers compiled by industry researchers, Huakun Zhenyu is classified as "strategic level," while Powerleader, Baixin and Shenzhou Kuntai are "preferred level." Shenzhou Kuntai is a majority-owned subsidiary of Digital China, and Huaqi Zhihui is a subsidiary of Dahua Technology; both listed parents have issued filings on this project recently.

In other words, the 20,480 cards will be delivered by five separate server makers, but trace them upstream and they share the same chip and reference design. The filings themselves do not disclose which chip these super-nodes use, describing the scope only as "super-node servers."

The Notice Period Runs to November 2, and No Contract Has Been Signed

Digital China's filing on the evening of October 29 (No. 2026-115) is blunt: "This project is currently still within the public notice period for candidate winning bidders, and there is a degree of uncertainty as to whether the company will obtain the Notice of Award and ultimately sign a formal contract," adding that "the final award amount shall be as stated in the Notice of Award." The notice period closes on November 2.

One figure also fails to reconcile. In an October 24 filing, Dahua Technology said that if Huaqi Zhihui wins, the resulting contract value is expected not to exceed 2.05 billion yuan. Yet multiplying the 11.638 billion yuan bid by the 20% share gives 2.328 billion yuan, a difference of 278 million yuan.