Nvidia vs. everybody else: Competition mounts against the top AI chip company

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For a decade, one company has maintained a near-total stranglehold on the business of selling the advanced computer chips that power machine learning and artificial intelligence: Nvidia. Armed with the most advanced blueprints for graphics processing units, or GPUs, and helped by the rapid pace of innovation at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the contract fabricator that makes 90% of the world’s advanced AI chips, Nvidia has become synonymous with AI processors.

That’s starting to change. New entrants to the AI chip-design business, including Google and Amazon, are talking about selling their most advanced chips, which rival Nvidia’s GPUs in power and efficiency, to an array of outside customers. Smaller rivals like Advanced Micro Devices, Qualcomm and Broadcom are introducing products that help them focus more intently on AI data-center computing.

Even some of Nvidia’s biggest customers, like ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Meta Platforms, are beginning to design their own custom chips, presenting a fresh challenge to the company’s ubiquity. While it’s unlikely that Nvidia will see a mass exodus of customers, efforts by AI firms to diversify their suppliers could make it harder for the market leader to generate the superlative sales growth investors have grown accustomed to seeing. The landscape is shifting rapidly.

Each passing week seems to come with a new, massive tech infrastructure deal or the release of a new generation of powerful AI chips. Here’s a rundown of the major companies jostling for position in the fast-growing market for AI chips. Nvidia’s dominance in AI computing power has made it the most valuable company in the world and propelled its leather-jacket-clad Chief