Can Nvidia Retain Its AI Chip Dominance?

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Weak Sales report, Nvidia GTC, Travel Ban, Ukraine, 18F

  Companies to watch: Figure, FireSat, Klarna, SoftBank, xAI, Joby Aviation

• Feature: Can Nvidia Retain Its AI Chip Dominance? GTC 2025 Today…

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Economy Watch — Indices rebounded slightly on short-term trend shifts, but investors remain cautious after another weak U.S. retail sales report (up 0.2%), and a White House confirmation of reciprocal tariffs coming into effect on April 2

Travel Ban Proposal — The Trump administration is considering a travel ban on citizens from 11 countries deemed security threats, revisiting a repealed Biden policy.

Nvidia's AI Defense — Nvidia CEO Jesen Huang is set to defend the company's AI leadership at its annual dev conference. Meanwhile Intel plans to revamp manufacturing and AI ops and Google partners with MediaTek for its next AI chips.

Trump's Ukraine Talks — President Trump plans to discuss a Ukraine ceasefire/peace deal with President Putin, focusing on land and power plant issues.

18F Shutdown — Elon Musk tweeted about the GSA's 18F, a little-known office dedicated to tech and consulting services, being deleted. All staff were laid off.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

Figure — Launched BotQ, a facility to produce 12,000 humanoid robots annually, scaling to 100,000, with a focus on vertical integration and using robots in assembly.

FireSat — The first Google-backed satellite launched to improve wildfire detection, aiming to deploy 50+ satellites for near real-time updates and 5-meter resolution.

Klarna — Partners with OnePay to offer installment loans at Walmart with 3-36 month terms, affecting Affirm shares which dropped 11%. Klarna plans a U.S. IPO.

SoftBank — Acquired a $676M Sharp plant in Osaka to create an AI data center in partnership with OpenAI, focusing on customized AI agents, operational by 2026.

xAI — Elon Musk's xAI acquired Hotshot, an AI video generation tools startup with three video models, aiming to compete against OpenAI and Google.

Joby Aviation — Partnered with Virgin Atlantic to launch electric air taxis in the UK, aiming for urban air mobility with major airport connections, pending certification.

THE HOTTEST THING IN TECH
Can Nvidia Retain Its AI Chip Dominance?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is gearing up today to reclaim center stage at the company's high-stakes GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2025). Traditionally the premier event for AI innovation, this year GTC arrives at a pivotal moment as Nvidia grapples with intensifying competition, market uncertainty, and shifting geopolitics.

Nvidia's Leadership Faces New Challenges

Just a year ago, Nvidia enjoyed near-total dominance, capturing over 90% of the AI training chip market. But tech moves swiftly, and Nvidia’s stronghold is under threat from all sides. Nvidia isn’t exactly broke. It posted a record-breaking quarter in Feb, at $39.3B revenue and projecting $43B, and still commands ~82% of the GPU market. It has also ramped up its VC activity in 2024, participating in 49 funding rounds for AI companies, a sharp increase from 34 in 2023, according to PitchBook data.

However, the emergence of China's DeepSeek, whose efficient AI reasoning model rattled investor confidence by requiring significantly less computing power, contributed to Nvidia’s recent stock struggles. Additionally, Nvidia’s RTX GPU units have faced delays and criticism from users, and their AI-generated gaming characters have drawn negative reviews as "soulless," highlighting the urgent need for Nvidia to deliver a big win this week.

Rivals Ramp Up the Pressure

Competition is getting fierce in the chips sector. AMD and Google are aggressively pushing into AI chips, challenging Nvidia’s traditional dominance. Google's rumored collaboration with Taiwan’s MediaTek to build its own affordable custom AI chips signals an industry shift toward customized silicon, reducing reliance on Nvidia's pricier solutions. This trend could reshape the AI chip landscape significantly.

Adding fuel to the fire is competition from Elon Musk's startup xAI. Dylan Jovine, CEO of Business Insider, has speculated that AMD might soon work with Musk on building in-house AI chips for the startup. Jovine cites AMD's chips as 2.4x more powerful than Nvidia’s—earning praise from Musk himself. While unconfirmed officially, this speculation underscores the growing perception of AMD as a credible Nvidia rival. xAI also has strong ties to Samsung and TSMC which have both supplied chips for Tesla.

Intel, with new CEO Lip-Bu Tan at the helm, yesterday announced the company is undergoing a radical transformation to boost its AI ops and manufacturing capabilities, as well as cutting middle management. If it can reposition this will intensify pressure on Nvidia.

Even in gaming, Nvidia may be losing its dominance as Qualcomm yesterday unveiled its Snapdragon G-series at GDC 2025, targeting handheld Android devices. Qualcomm’s push demonstrates the broader industry trend toward specialized, high-performance chip designs—an indirect challenge to Nvidia’s broad-market approach.

Geopolitical Tensions Add Complexity

Geopolitically, Europe is actively pushing for "digital sovereignty," favoring local tech solutions over dependence on foreign giants like Nvidia. A European tech industry coalition just announced a calls for the EU to take 'radical action' on the issue by prioritizing local digital infrastructure to reduce reliance on foreign tech. It advocates the establishment of a Sovereign Infrastructure Fund to support homegrown manufacturing, potentially limiting Nvidia's future market reach. 

BMW and Huawei also just announced a partnership to develop smart automotive technology together. The leading Chinese chipmaker is advancing fast, and this partnership may also herald a shift in the EU and China away from reliance on the US and closer ties to China in the chips and AI processing area. 

Huawei plans to commence mass production of its advanced Ascend 910C AI chip in Q1, giving it a credible alternative to Nvidia. Huawei has reportedly acquired over 2 million AI chip dies from TSMC through shell companies, along with sufficient high-bandwidth memory to sustain more than a year of production. And just last week, Chinese scientists revealed a chip capable of performing certain AI tasks, such as image recognition and autonomous driving, 3,000x faster than current high-performance AI chips. Finally Chinese researchers just announced Zuchongzhi 3.0, a “Quantum Supremacy” chip that rivals Google's Willow; but is 1quadrillion x faster.

What To Expect at GTC 2025

Jensen Huang is expected to unveil the powerful Blackwell Ultra GB300 chip, promising major enhancements in computing efficiency, and introduce the next-generation Rubin GPU architecture designed specifically for AI inference—where competition is heating up.

Not stopping there, Nvidia is doubling down on frontier technologies like quantum computing, robotics, and healthcare-focused Agentic AI. Huang himself will host a groundbreaking "Quantum Day," joined by industry leaders from Microsoft and Amazon. This signals Nvidia’s strategic foresight in positioning itself at the center of tech’s next major evolution. We can also expect a number of announcements relating to Nvidia's Digital Twins and Indutrial Metaverse strategy that form the backbone of its long-term strategy. 

A Moment of Truth

Nvidia must deliver something groundbreaking. Huang needs a standout innovation to regain investor confidence and reassert its technological leadership. With investors and competitors watching closely, GTC 2025 isn't merely another tech conference—it's a critical turning point for Nvidia and the global AI industry.

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BUZZY TOOLS
Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

Google — Chirp 3 voice model on Vertex AI with 8 new voices for 31 languages.

Apple — iPhone 17 Air: 5.5mm thin, ultraslim bezels, $900, launch Sept.

OLMo 2 32B — First open source model outperforming GPT-3.5/4o mini.

Cohere Command A — Outperforms GPT-4o and DeepSeek-V3 in enterprise tasks.

Baidu — ERNIE 4.5 & X1 free models outperform GPT-4.5, Deepseek.

Sesame — Open-sourced CSM-1B AI model for voice assistant Maya, as Apache 2.0.

BUZZY TECH
The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Patronus — New MLLM-as-a-Judge tool for scalable image evaluations.

NanoSoils Bio — Nanotech for sustainable pesticides and drought-resistant crops.

AI Code — OpenAI's CPO foresees AI surpassing humans in coding by 2025.

Quantum Diode Vision — Tiny diode mimics neurons for AI vision sensors.

TxAgent — AI agent enhances drug reasoning and personalized treatment.

Quantum Supremacy Chip — China's Zuchongzhi 3.0 chip rivals Google's Willow.

SPACE_RACE

—SpaceX_Musk says Tesla's humanoid robot will ride a Starship to Mars by 2026.

—NASA_Dragonfly faces wind-blown boulder risks to a 2034 landing on Titan.

—ISS Crew Update_SpaceX Crew-10 docks, astronauts to return March 19.

[NEW FEATURE] CRYPTO WATCH

Global Crypto Funds — ETFs hit a record $6.4B outflow over five weeks, with $1.7B last week. U.S. investors led with major losses in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana amid market volatility.

Walletry AI — This advanced crypto wallet offers AI-driven security, multi-currency support, and automation tools, catering to both beginners and experienced traders with API integrations and rewards programs.

Binance.US — The trump family office is reportedly in talks to invest in Binance.US amid legal issues, including founder CZ’s guilty plea for AML violations and a presidential pardon request.

Telegram — Founder Pavel Durov has left France for Dubai after judicial changes amid charges. This boosted Toncoin's value as he pledges better moderation.

SEC Crypto Custody Rule — Acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda is reconsidering a proposed rule tightening crypto custody requirements, extending to De-fi brokers.

MEMETICS

How the AI Talent Race Is Reshaping the Tech Job Market from the WSJ.

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