Cathie Wood Sees Competition For Nvidia As ARK Projects Custom Silicon Boom By 2030: Amazon Is The 'Sleeping Giant'

By Ananya Gairola | March 01, 2026, 11:43 PM

Earlier this week, Cathie Wood highlighted the intensifying competition for Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) as ARK Investment Management forecasts that custom AI chips could command more than one-third of the compute market by the end of the decade.

ARK Sees Custom Silicon Reshaping AI Compute Market

Frank Downing, ARK's director of research for next-generation internet, said in a post on X that the firm expects "over a third of the compute market will be custom silicon by 2030."

He defined custom as non-GPU chips — effectively alternatives to products from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) — though he noted that industry lines are "blurring."

non-GPU in this case

I would say non-Nvidia/AMD but now that Nvidia effectively bought Groq lines are bluring

— Frank Downing (@downingARK) February 28, 2026

"Everyone knows Google's TPU, but Amazon is the sleeping giant that is waking up," Downing wrote.

A chart shared by Downing shows traditional servers rapidly losing share to accelerated computing, with application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, gaining ground alongside GPUs through 2030.

We predict that over a third of the compute market will be custom silicon by 2030. This announcement is another step in that direction.

Everyone knows Google's TPU, but Amazon is the sleeping giant that is waking up.

Have a blog coming soon that dives deeper into this. https://t.co/aR7QgFFcf7 pic.twitter.com/wuv6DwwJFP

— Frank Downing (@downingARK) February 27, 2026

Wood amplified the message, sharing the post and adding: "Competition for Nvidia."

Competition for Nvidia. https://t.co/siQ7FHsFta

— Cathie Wood (@CathieDWood) March 1, 2026

Amazon-OpenAI Deal Signals Shift Beyond Nvidia GPUs

The comments follow a multi-year partnership between Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and OpenAI.

Amazon committed up to $50 billion to the ChatGPT maker and expanded an existing compute agreement by $100 billion over eight years.

A key element of the deal centers on OpenAI's use of Amazon's custom Trainium chips, including next-generation versions expected in 2027. OpenAI will consume roughly 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity, underscoring the scale of the commitment.

Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google continues positioning its Tensor Processing Units as an alternative to Nvidia's GPUs, with reports that Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) has agreed to lease TPUs for advanced AI development.

Nvidia Q4 Revenue Surges 73%, Q1 Outlook Beats Estimates

Meanwhile, Nvidia reported fourth-quarter revenue of $68.13 billion, marking a 73% increase from a year ago and surpassing the Street consensus estimate of $66.0 billion.

For the first quarter, the company projected revenue between $76.44 billion and $79.56 billion, well above analysts' $71.96 billion estimate.

Price Action: Nvidia shares are down 7.41% in the past five days. In the after-hours trading, the shares were up by 0.34%, reaching $177.80.

Nvidia ranks high on quality in Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings, reflecting a strong long-term uptrend, though its short- and mid-term price trend appears weaker.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo: bluestork / Shutterstock

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