Jensen Huang@NVIDIA and growing the "5 layer AI pie" strategy

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I'm sure in 5-10 years there will be many papers/books written on how Jensen Huang and his team at NVIDIA operated this decade in growing the 5 layer - AI pie. https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-5-layer-cake/

Maybe something for Chris Miller's new book, many geopolitical aspects on this AI buildout (https://chrismillersnewsletter.substack.com/)?


From a distance looking at this it is just amazing how Jensen Huang connects NVIDIA to as many as possible companies, e.g. on logic-foundry NVIDIA is firmly connected now to TSMC, Samsung and INTEL, and on memory with SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron.

Also in many of the other AI-layers he has firmly connected NVIDIA via hardware and software, and hundreds of companies.

But still he is playing a very interesting inclusive "join the global-AI-party" strategy without squandering the interests of NVIDIA, and many seem to want to join growing the AI-pie.

Maybe partially due to his background growing up on Taiwan, a small island needing to survive next door to a big and growing China, Thailand and USA, and founding NVIDIA in the competitive environment of Silicon Valley?

To me it seems like a (very) different strategy than e.g. Bill Gates pursued with growing the (Microsoft/INTEL) PC-revolution. Jensen Huang & NVIDIA want to firmly connect Asia with USA.

What do others in this community of global semi-experts think about the "growing the AI-pie strategy" of NVIDIA?




With Samsung at GTC 2026:

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, standing alongside Samsung Foundry president Jinman Han and memory executive SangJoon Hwang, signed two silicon wafers in permanent marker. On a sixth-generation HBM4 wafer, he wrote "AMAZING HBM4." On a separate 4nm wafer for Groq's third-generation language processing unit (LPU), he wrote "Groq Super FAST."

 

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Maybe Gemini should write the AI-pie strategy book :


Jensen Huang’s reputation as a collaborative "ecosystem player" is a calculated business strategy as much as it is a leadership philosophy. While many tech CEOs build "walled gardens" to lock customers in, Huang has spent decades positioning NVIDIA as the "foundational layer" for everyone else's success.

By the current landscape of March 2026, this strategy has evolved into what Huang calls being "vertically integrated, but horizontally open." Here is why and how he plays the ecosystem game so effectively:

1. The "Five-Layer Cake" Philosophy​

Huang views the AI industry not as a single product, but as a stack where NVIDIA provides the base. At the recent GTC 2026 keynote, he described AI as a five-layer cake:

• Energy & Power
• Chips (GPUs, CPUs, LPUs)
• Infrastructure (Networking, Data Centers)
• Models (LLMs, Physics AI)
• Applications (SaaS, Robotics, Healthcare)

By defining NVIDIA’s role at the bottom (the chips and infrastructure), he makes NVIDIA a partner to everyone above them—even companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon that are technically building their own chips.

2. Creating a "Flywheel" of Developers​

One of Huang’s most successful long-term bets was CUDA, NVIDIA's parallel computing platform.

• The Installed Base: For 20 years, he ensured that every researcher and student had access to NVIDIA GPUs.
• The Result: Today, there is an "ecosystem lock-in" not because people are forced to use it, but because the global library of code and talent is already built on NVIDIA. Huang continues to support even older GPUs because a larger "installed base" makes his platform more valuable for everyone involved.

3. Turning Competitors into Partners​

Huang is famous for embracing "co-opetition." For instance:

• Cloud Giants: Companies like AWS and Meta are building their own AI chips, but they remain NVIDIA's largest customers. Huang ensures NVIDIA's software (like the new Vera Rubin platform) is integrated into their clouds so deeply that they can't afford not to collaborate.
• Open Source: In 2025 and 2026, Huang aggressively pivoted toward open-source projects. He recently launched the Nemotron Coalition to help global labs build open models and partnered with OpenClaw to create "NemoClaw," an enterprise-grade AI agent platform. This "democratizes" AI while ensuring NVIDIA hardware remains the engine driving it.

4. Leadership: "Information Should Be Shared Freely"​

Internally, Huang’s leadership style mirrors his ecosystem strategy. He famously has 40 direct reports and no 1:1 meetings. His reasoning? He believes that if a strategic direction is important, everyone should hear it at the same time. This radical transparency prevents silos and allows his organization to move as a unified unit within the larger tech ecosystem.

5. Expanding into "Physical AI"​

Huang’s latest ecosystem push is into Robotics and Industrial Digital Twins. By partnering with giants like Siemens, BYD, and ABB Robotics, he isn't just selling them chips; he’s providing the Omniverse platform where they can simulate entire factories. This makes NVIDIA indispensable to the "re-industrialization" of the global economy.