DeepSeek and Huawei take aim at Nvidia’s formidable moat

DEEPSEEK and Huawei are chipping away at one of Nvidia’s most important advantages in China. In the process, they are building a bridge that could make it far easier for Chinese artificial intelligence firms still reliant on American hardware to switch to home-grown alternatives.

The Hangzhou-based AI model maker and the Shenzhen telecommunications giant are teaming up on software, an underappreciated source of Nvidia’s continued global dominance.

While the Santa Clara-based chipmaker’s hardware gets most of the attention, its superior software ecosystem has long given developers another powerful reason to stick with its chips even as Huawei has aggressively tried to ramp up domestic shipments of alternatives.