NVIDIA released approximately 100 models—more than Google, Alibaba, IBM, or any other organization. Why would a hardware company become the world’s most prolific model releaser?
The business model is clear: give away the models, sell the infrastructure.
Every open model download increases demand for training and inference compute. The marginal cost of modeldistribution is zero; the marginal revenue from infrastructure is substantial.
More open models → More developers building on NVIDIA
More developers → More applications requiring GPUs
More applications → More infrastructure demand
More infrastructure → More reason to release open models
Strategic Implications
Model providers face margin pressure as open alternatives proliferate. Infrastructure providers benefit from ecosystem growth regardless of model market share.
Infrastructure is the durable moat. The model layer is commoditizing; the compute layer captures value.
The Bottom Line
NVIDIA’s strategy reveals the structural reality: models are marketing, infrastructure is the business. The company that provides the substrate for intelligence benefits regardless of which models, agents, or applications win.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
