Nvidia's AI moat is shifting from chips to capital

Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., speaks to members of the media following the company's "Japan AI Ecosystem" reception in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, July 16, 2026. Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesNvidia's massive head start in artificial intelligence turned the chipmaker into the world's most valuable company. Now, almost four years into the generative AI boom, competitors like Advanced Micro Devices and Google have chipped away at Nvidia's technology lead, pushing the company to take advantage of its other great asset: capital. Following last week's pact with Wall Street firms to pursue $500 billion worth of financing for Nvidia's graphics processing units, Nvidia said on Monday that it's providing up to $105 billion for a giant OpenAI data center in Ohio, offering a backstop of sorts should the ChatGPT creator see its fortunes turn. For Nvidia, the strategy involves fueling the AI boom by whatever means necessary, recognizing that demand for critical infrastructure is seemingly insatiable but that a handful of companies — the hyperscalers — account for an outsized amount of purchases. With its quarterly free cash flow up 18-fold over the past three yea...