NVidia has enormous operating margins, so a competitive solution doesn't have to match or beat NVidia's scale efficiencies; it just has to beat delivered cost.

One objective of the project might be simply to provide credible negotiating leverage when dealing with existing suppliers like NVidia. You don't have to deploy at scale for that to work, but you do have to look like you could if pushed hard enough.

> NVidia has enormous operating margins, so a competitive solution doesn't have to match or beat NVidia's scale efficiencies; it just has to beat delivered cost.

But then that means you have no actual moat against the behemot, right? Your competitor can move into the market as soon as they want to, at much better cost (so at slightly better price)... and Nvidia certainly can adapt much faster around hard hardware specs innovation than a new entrant ever could.