In the AI wave, the most profitable aren't the model creators but the shovel-seller NVIDIA.

Jensen Huang recently stated another hard truth: even if competitors gave away chips for free, they still couldn't defeat NVIDIA. He made the same point last March, and it still holds today.


Most assume NVIDIA's moat is its CUDA ecosystem, but Huang sees deeper. In a 30,000-word interview, he revealed the key: while competitors obsess over building better chips, NVIDIA is constructing AI factories.

This system includes GPUs, NVLink interconnects, Spectrum-X networking, and the CUDA software platform. While others sell components, NVIDIA delivers entire production lines.

Simple math: if NVIDIA's system delivers double the performance, even with free competitor chips, customers could still earn twice the revenue using NVIDIA's solution. Businesses want total cost advantage, not component pricing.

Tech giants developing their own AI chips still report progress to NVIDIA, fearing supply cuts. This paradox proves no one can bypass Huang's AI factories yet.

Anyone can stack hardware specs, but integrating chips, connectivity, and software cohesively requires over a decade of accumulation. NVIDIA's moat isn't technical barriers but system-level efficiency.

While rivals focus on cheaper chips, Huang has elevated competition to the battlefield of total cost of ownership.