Compare moats
Up to three covered companies, band by band. Every call is a curated editorial judgment, never a disclosed figure — and every band carries its cited basis.
| Applied Digital | Ambarella | Cipher Mining | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | none The FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-07-29) shows contracted revenue, not a demonstrated competitive edge. About 1,410 MW is leased under 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable base terms worth about $36.2 billion, but only about 100 MW of the roughly 1.5 GW that is contracted and either operating or under construction was operating and earning revenue at May 31, 2026, and Item 1A says "lessees may have the right to terminate applicable leases if there are significant delays in construction." Item 1A also concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time," and the Competition section names 13 power-advantaged developers the company competes with. Signed leases give revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable advantage. | none Ambarella earns a solid gross margin on its vision chips but has not turned it into GAAP operating profit, and its own filing describes larger rivals and falling prices. The 10-K and 10-Q financial data (as carried in TradingPilot fundamentals) report gross profit of $231,266 thousand on revenue of $390,702 thousand in fiscal 2026 (year ended 2026-01-31), against an operating loss of $82,527 thousand. GAAP operating income was negative in every fiscal year from fiscal 2019 (a loss of $40,420 thousand) through fiscal 2026, including a loss of $154,560 thousand in fiscal 2024. The quarter ended 2026-07-31 still shows an operating loss of $8,143 thousand on revenue of $108,125 thousand (10-Q filed 2026-09-04). The 10-Q's risk factors say 'Many of our competitors are substantially larger'. They say third parties 'have licensed their technology, including image signal processing and computer vision IP, which potentially enables a greater number of competitors to offer competitive solutions', and that average selling prices 'have typically decreased over time and will likely do so in the future'. None rather than narrow, because in no fiscal year since 2019 has the design-win position produced a GAAP operating profit. | none Cipher (renamed Cipher Digital Inc. on 20 February 2026) holds signed, credit-supported leases but has not yet shown that they amount to a durable advantage. Its 2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026-02-24) says "Through the end of 2025, our revenue has been derived from mining bitcoin". Its Q2 2026 business update (2026-08-04, Exhibit 99.1, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1819989/000181998926000038/q226_earningsxprxdraftxvf.htm) reported "Q2 2026 Revenue of $25 million", and its first HPC rent began only in August 2026 at Black Pearl. The 10-K's own risk factors describe a contested market. They say "There has been an increasing number of businesses constructing HPC data centers, which has resulted in increasing competition and pricing pressure that may cause us to reduce our pricing in order to remain competitive", that "our data centers are single-tenant properties", and that lessees "will have the right to terminate the lease if there are significant delays in the completion of construction". At Barber Lake, where the 10-K targeted Phase I delivery "by September 30, 2026", a September 2026 amendment, made "In connection with change orders and the continued evolution of tenant requirements", moved data-hall deliveries to the fourth quarter of 2026 through the first quarter of 2027. Under it, Cipher "will bear the first $359.3 million of costs in excess of the initial budgeted amount" (2026-09-25). There is real counter-evidence: a 15-year Amazon lease, a Google-backstopped Fluidstack lease whose contracted life a "leading AI lab" extended to 20 years, and a third lease with an investment-grade hyperscale tenant. Until that capacity is delivered and paying rent, though, a moat is not shown, so the band is none. |
| Moat type | none The 10-K claims three advantages: power-advantaged sites (it believes securing power and interconnection ahead of demand is 'the principal constraint on new HPC capacity and a core differentiator for us from many of our competitors'), a standardized 'franchise-style' design, and hyperscaler master service and master telecom service agreements 'that are difficult to obtain.' The filing does not show any of them to be durable. Its Competition section says competition 'centers on securing and developing sites with access to large-scale, reliable, and cost-competitive power and interconnection' and names 13 power-advantaged developers going after the same leases, and Item 1A concedes it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases are take-or-pay and non-cancellable, so a tenant leaving for convenience owes 'the full remaining contractual value,' but that is contractual lock-in on each lease rather than a moat source, so no moat type is assigned. | none The one durable mechanism the 10-Q (2026-09-04) describes is the design socket, and it cuts both ways. 'Once an OEM designs a competitor's device into its product, it becomes significantly more difficult for us to sell our SoC solutions to that OEM because changing suppliers involves significant cost, time, effort and risk for the OEM.' In OEM automotive and robotics, the filing says Ambarella faces 'certain competitive disadvantages in these markets relative to larger competitors that have significantly more resources and a longer history working with OEMs and ODMs'. The risk factors present socket stickiness as protecting whichever supplier wins, say rivals can license image-signal-processing and computer-vision IP, and name no lock specific to Ambarella. | none No moat source is demonstrated yet. Switching costs are the most likely candidate, since the leases are long (15 years at Black Pearl; Barber Lake now a 20-year contracted life) and each site has a single tenant. But the 10-K says tenant guarantees "will only be effective after rent commencement under such leases and are subject to certain limitations", and by August 2026 rent had begun at only one site. The advantages the 10-K claims are the company's own. It speaks of "industry-leading expertise in originating and securing industrial-scale, greenfield data center sites" and of securing West Texas land "on more favorable terms than in more established data center markets". The same document says "there is significant competition for power capacity and energized facilities". Intellectual property is modest: "four granted United States patents and one issued patent in Taiwan". With 66 full-time employees, Cipher has no scale advantage over the competitors it names: CoreWeave, Digital Realty, Equinix, Vantage Data Centers and Aligned Data Centers. |
| Leadership | behind The 10-K makes no leadership claim and gives no ranking or share figure. Item 1A concedes "We do not have the resources to compete with larger providers of similar products or services at this time" and that some rivals have "substantially greater liquidity and financial resources than we do." Its Competition section places APLD against established operators (Digital Realty, Equinix), hyperscalers that build their own capacity, independent developers and 13 named power-advantaged developers (IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, Hut 8, Riot, CleanSpark, HIVE, Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Galaxy Digital, Fermi, Keel Infrastructure, MARA). | at parity No independent ranking was found. The 10-Q (2026-09-04) names HiSilicon, Novatek, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and SigmaStar as primary IoT competitors. In the automotive camera market it names Horizon Robotics, Mobileye, Novatek, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Renesas and Texas Instruments. It says many competitors have 'significantly better brand recognition and broader product offerings than us'. It does win sockets at named customers: its largest end customer in fiscal 2027 to date was Insta360 (Arashi Vision), and its top 10 end customers were 'approximately 67%' of fiscal 2026 revenue. It is one supplier among several, conceding scale and, in automotive and robotics, 'competitive disadvantages', so the band is at parity, not leading. | fast follower No independent share or rank was found. The 10-K names CoreWeave, Digital Realty, Equinix, Vantage Data Centers and Aligned Data Centers as competitors, along with miners that have "signed leases with hyperscalers and HPC tenants": Hut 8, IREN, TeraWulf, Core Scientific and Applied Digital. Cipher has signed hyperscale-grade tenants (Amazon; Fluidstack with a Google backstop; a third investment-grade hyperscaler) but delivered its first HPC capacity only in August 2026 (Q2 2026 update). That makes it a fast follower. Its self-description as "a leading developer, owner, and operator of industrial-scale data centers" is the company's own claim and is not counted. |
| Pricing power | weak Item 1A says "Due to the limited number of hyperscalers, we expect that a limited number of customers will continue to account for a high percentage of our revenue for the foreseeable future," and that if customers' equipment usage declines or they discontinue use of its facilities, APLD "may be compelled to lower our lease prices in some instances or risk losing a significant customer." One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. Take-or-pay, non-cancellable terms protect contracted revenue over the base term, and Note 19 reports a $39.1M HPC Hosting segment profit on $385.3M of segment revenue in FY2026, but those terms are agreed with a small group of concentrated buyers. | moderate Gross profit has held at a steady share of revenue. The filed financial data (as carried in TradingPilot fundamentals) show $231,266 thousand on $390,702 thousand in fiscal 2026, $172,330 thousand on $284,865 thousand in fiscal 2025, and $62,416 thousand on $108,125 thousand in the quarter ended 2026-07-31. The 10-Q expects that average selling prices 'will likely' keep decreasing, 'which could harm our revenue and gross margins'. | weak The 10-K says competition "has resulted in increasing competition and pricing pressure that may cause us to reduce our pricing in order to remain competitive". It adds that if customers cut usage "we may be compelled to lower our prices or risk losing a significant customer". At Barber Lake, Cipher agreed to absorb "the first $359.3 million of costs in excess of the initial budgeted amount", with the tenant reimbursing "50% of any such costs above that amount" (2026-09-25, Exhibit 99.1, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1819989/000181998926000043/barberlakeleaseamendmentpr.htm). Its one input-cost edge is specific to mining: Odessa's power costs about 2.8 c/kWh under the Luminant contract, available "until at least July 2027". A landlord that concedes cost overruns to its tenants has weak pricing power. |
| Summary | Applied Digital designs, builds and operates purpose-built, liquid-cooled HPC data centers, which it calls 'AI factories', and leases the capacity to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. At May 31, 2026 its 10-K lists five campuses (Polaris Forge 1-3 and Delta Forge 1-2) with about 1,410 MW contracted under roughly 15-year take-or-pay, non-cancellable leases worth about $36.2 billion over the base terms. The filing claims three sources of advantage: it controls power-advantaged sites, it uses a standardized 'franchise-style' design built to deliver about 150 MW in about 14 to 18 months, and it holds hyperscaler master agreements that are 'difficult to obtain.' The same document shows how early the company is. About 100 MW was operating and earning revenue. One customer was 59% of FY2026 revenue from continuing operations. It competes with Digital Realty, Equinix, hyperscalers that build their own capacity and 13 named power-advantaged developers, and it concedes that it lacks the resources to compete with larger providers. Signed leases give long-dated revenue visibility, but the filing does not show a durable competitive advantage. | Ambarella designs video-processing and AI vision chips that camera and car makers build into their products at the design stage. It sells to ODMs and OEMs, largely through WT Microelectronics, which the 10-Q says accounted for 'approximately 70% of total revenue' in fiscal 2026. The filing ties future growth to expanding 'within the Internet of Things, or IoT, and automotive markets with our new artificial intelligence, or AI, SoC solutions' and to penetrating robotics and industrial markets. Revenue rose to $390,702 thousand in fiscal 2026 from $284,865 thousand in fiscal 2025, but losses continued. The site's filing reader could not extract the business section of the FY2026 10-K, so this profile rests on the latest 10-Q's risk factors and filed financial data. | Cipher built bitcoin mining data centres in Texas and is now developing single-tenant AI and HPC campuses for lease to hyperscalers. Its 10-K reports a portfolio of "4.2 gigawatts ("GW") of capacity across 10 sites". It lists a 15-year Amazon Web Services lease for about 300 MW of turnkey capacity at Black Pearl and a Fluidstack lease at Barber Lake (300 MW gross) under which Google "has agreed to backstop certain obligations of Fluidstack". It describes bitcoin mining at Odessa on a Luminant power contract at about 2.8 c/kWh. In 2026 it signed a third campus lease "with an investment-grade Hyperscale tenant" (Q1 2026 update, 2026-05-05), delivered first Black Pearl capacity in August "two months ahead of the original schedule" with rent commenced, and fully funded its Stingray development with a bond (Q2 2026 update). On 2026-09-25 it said Barber Lake's contracted life was extended from 10 to 20 years, taking contracted revenue at the site "from $3.8 billion to over $9 billion". The 10-K says Odessa was "the first bitcoin mining data center awarded the Management and Operations, or M&O, Stamp of Approval award from the Uptime Institute", which is independent recognition of how the company operates. Against this, the latest quarter's revenue was still bitcoin mining and fell to $25 million. The 10-K describes growing "competition and pricing pressure", single-tenant concentration, and termination rights for construction delays. The Barber Lake schedule was reset, and Cipher absorbs the first $359.3 million of cost overruns. Cipher's contracted pipeline is substantial, but a competitive advantage is not yet demonstrated, so it is rated as having no moat. That could change to narrow once its leased campuses are delivered and paying rent. |
| Chain position | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Edge-device silicon: vision and AI SoCs designed into cameras and vehicles by ODMs and OEMs, sold mostly through the distributor WT Microelectronics. | Cipher develops single-tenant, powered data-centre campuses for hyperscale and AI tenants: Amazon at Black Pearl, Fluidstack (backstopped by Google) at Barber Lake, and an unnamed investment-grade hyperscaler at a third campus. Meanwhile it winds down bitcoin mining. |
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| Long-horizon vote | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.01 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.06 at weight 0.20 · swarm bearish Editorial prior, not backtested. |