Fei Peng (@fiigii)

Everyone believes CUDA is NVIDIA's moat, the reason we've maintained our dominance in the AI era. I've never believed that. NVIDIA has only one true moat: its people. And the most important of them is Jensen Huang. I've worked on CUDA compilers, libraries, and DSLs for eight years, from Volta to Rubin. I think I've earned the right to share my perspective on what NVIDIA's moat really is. I hope you'll bear with me. 1. What is CUDA? Many people think CUDA is just a programming language and its compiler, and that NVIDIA's moat comes from the massive amount of software written in CUDA, making it impossible for developers to leave NVIDIA GPUs. This is completely wrong. It's an incredibly naive understanding of CUDA. To me, CUDA is everything NVIDIA does. CUDA isn't just a language, software, or hardware architecture. It's a product defined by a unique customer experience. When you find GPU programming too difficult, CUDA gives you an easier way. When your GPU code isn't fast enough, NVIDIA engineers respond and help you solve it. When a handful of GPUs can no longer push your technology forward, NVIDIA has already scaled its computing platform from desktops to massive data centers. When you need more data centers than anyone else can supply, NVIDIA has already secured wafer and HBM capacity years in advance to meet your demand. That experience is CUDA. It's made possible by the relentless, day-to-day work of everyone at NVIDIA. And the person who brings all these people together, who gives them a shared vision and purpose, is Jensen Huang. 2. What made CUDA possible? Patience. Perseverance. An unwavering commitment to a vision. Around 2006, NVIDIA bet that the future would demand far more computing power, and began transforming GPUs from graphics processors into a platform for general-purpose computing. Initially, it was a commercial disaster. The added costs hurt margins, the market wasn't ready, and the strategy faced enormous skepticism and pressure, including questions from the board. But Jensen persisted. For roughly a decade, NVIDIA kept investing in CUDA, building its hardware, software, and developer ecosystem long before the commercial payoff became clear. Eventually, deep learning arrived. And NVIDIA was ready. Today, this sounds like an inspiring story. But for those who lived through it, it meant a decade of perseverance, doubt, and being misunderstood. Looking back at the history of technology, how many people could have done the same? This is what I've always loved most about NVIDIA. And now, Jensen has been pushed out. This won't kill NVIDIA. The company can still create tremendous commercial value. But it has killed NVIDIA's soul. And how far can a body go without its soul? If this is how Jensen Huang is treated today, how will those of us who built CUDA be treated tomorrow? I love NVIDIA deeply, but I have to say it: NVIDIA is dead.