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 | Oracle | Walmart | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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. | wide Oracle's FY2026 10-K (fiscal year ended May 31, 2026) describes an installed base in which "substantially all customers opt to purchase software support contracts when they purchase an Oracle software license"; that entrenchment shows up externally as the #1 DB-Engines database ranking (August 2026, first of 435 systems) and $638B of contracted Remaining Performance Obligations at Q4 FY2026 (press release, June 10, 2026) — a durable, multi-decade lock on mission-critical enterprise data layers. | narrow Graded on the Item 1A text this run could read from the FY2026 10-K, which is where the filing argues hardest against a wide band. It says "each of our segments competes for customers, employees, digital prominence, products and services" with local, regional, national and global physical, eCommerce and omnichannel retailers, social commerce platforms, wholesale club operators, retail intermediaries "and emerging agentic shopping tools and platforms," that "the omnichannel retail landscape is highly competitive and rapidly evolving, and the entry of new, well-funded competitors, or more rapid development of AI capabilities and agentic tools by these competitors ... may increase competitive pressures," and concedes that "for eCommerce and other internet-based businesses, newer or smaller businesses may be better able to innovate and compete with us" and that there "can be no assurance" Walmart can adopt AI "as quickly or effectively as our competitors." It also warns of retail consolidation producing rivals with "improved financial resources, improved access to merchandise, greater market penetration." The filing claims no market share, rank or scale advantage anywhere in the text available here, and its own competitive-landscape discussion sits in Item 1, which the cached read-through returned only as a cross-reference; a wider band would not be sourced. |
| 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. | switching costs The core moat is the cost of moving mission-critical databases and back-office suites: the FY2026 10-K notes substantially all license customers attach support contracts and that Oracle's Multicloud Database offerings run Oracle AI Database inside other hyperscalers' clouds — monetizing the installed base even when the customer's infrastructure leaves; the KLAS 2026 EHR report shows the same dynamic in health IT, where roughly a third of Oracle Health customers want to leave but feel unable to do so. | cost scale What the readable text does describe as durable is physical and logistical scale rather than lock-in or IP. It says Walmart sources "from a wide variety of domestic and international suppliers," that global sourcing is "an important factor in our financial performance," and that finding suppliers able to supply "in the large volumes we may demand" is itself a challenge; it describes a network of stores, clubs and distribution and fulfillment centers in which "many products available for purchase online can be picked up by the customer or member at a local Walmart store or Sam's Club, which provides additional customer traffic at such stores and clubs"; and it lists "supply chain automation and enhancements" among the investments backing the strategy. The first competitive lever it names is "the prices at which we sell our merchandise." The filing offers no intangibles or switching-cost claim beyond noting that protection of its trademarks, copyrights, domain names, patents and trade secrets "may not be available in every jurisdiction." |
| 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). | co leader Split by line: clear leader in database (DB-Engines August 2026 ranks Oracle #1 and Oracle-owned MySQL #2 of 435 systems); one of the largest enterprise-application vendors ($15.9B FY2026 SaaS revenue, competing with SAP, Salesforce, Workday and Microsoft per the FY2026 10-K); but in cloud infrastructure a ~4%-share fast-growing challenger behind Amazon (28%), Microsoft (20%) and Google (15%) per Synergy Q2 2026 data (The Register, 2026-08-01), and #2 in US acute-care EHR behind Epic (KLAS 2026). | co leader The 10-K text available this run asserts no rank or share for Walmart. The band reflects two things the filing does say: that its strategy is meant to let it "maintain or grow our overall market position" across segments that already compete at global scale, and that it does not describe itself as ahead in the channels that matter most to it - "for eCommerce and other internet-based businesses, newer or smaller businesses may be better able to innovate and compete with us," and on AI adoption "there can be no assurance that these investments will deliver the anticipated benefits, or that we will be able to adopt and leverage these technologies as quickly or effectively as our competitors." Treat this band as bounded by the missing Item 1 competition discussion, not as a measured position. |
| 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 Strong in the installed base — the FY2026 10-K states substantially all license customers purchase support contracts, a recurring stream customers rarely drop — but the same 10-K lists "total cost of ownership" first among key competitive factors and describes intense competition across every segment; AI-infrastructure deals are won against hyperscalers and neoclouds, and Q4 FY2026 SaaS grew a moderate 10% versus 93% for IaaS (press release, June 10, 2026). | weak The filing names price first among the ways it competes - "we compete in a variety of ways, including the prices at which we sell our merchandise" - and states that higher supplier labour and material costs may "adversely impact product margins ... that we are unable, or choose not, to pass on to our customers." It adds that macro conditions can "change the mix of products we sell to any one or more markets with a lower average gross margin" and "result in slower inventory turnover and greater markdowns of inventory." In health and wellness the price is set by counterparties, not by Walmart: "a large majority of our retail pharmacy net sales are generated by filling prescriptions for which we receive payment through established contractual relationships with third-party payers and payment administrators, such as private insurers, governmental agencies and pharmacy benefit managers," exposing it to "reductions in the third-party reimbursement rates for drugs." |
| 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. | Oracle pairs the deepest switching-cost franchise in enterprise software — the #1-ranked database (DB-Engines, August 2026) plus Fusion/NetSuite back-office suites, with support attach near-universal per the FY2026 10-K — with a late but explosive push into AI cloud infrastructure: Q4 FY2026 IaaS revenue grew 93% to $5.8B and RPO reached $638B (up 363% YoY), mostly large-scale AI contracts (press release, June 10, 2026). The two reinforce each other via multicloud — Oracle Multicloud AI Database grew 404% in Q4 running inside rival clouds. The offsets: in cloud infrastructure Oracle is still a ~4%-share challenger behind AWS/Microsoft/Google (Synergy Q2 2026 data via The Register), the AI buildout drove FY2026 free cash flow to negative $23.7B, and the Cerner-based Oracle Health business has lost US hospital share for three straight years (KLAS 2026). | In the FY2026 10-K text readable this run, Walmart describes an "enterprise strategy, which combines traditional retail, membership models, marketplaces, financial services, health and wellness and other customer and business services into a series of interconnected assets to make it seamless for customers to interact with us," carried by stores, clubs and distribution and fulfillment centers that double as pickup and delivery nodes and by continuing investment in eCommerce, AI and supply chain automation. The filing sets its own limits on that: it calls the omnichannel landscape "highly competitive and rapidly evolving," warns that well-funded entrants and faster AI or agentic tooling by rivals may increase pressure, that smaller businesses may out-innovate it online, and that "a greater concentration of eCommerce sales, including increasing online grocery sales and the increasing role of AI-enabled platforms in product search, discovery, advertising and purchasing, could result in a reduction in the amount of traffic in our stores and clubs." On economics it concedes supplier cost increases it may be "unable, or choose not, to pass on to our customers," and it points investors to "advertising and other higher-margin initiatives (which are expected to help drive our operating income growth at a rate faster than net sales over the long term)" rather than to price. |
| Chain position | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Supply-chain role in AI: OCI sells GPU compute for AI training and inference — the Q4 FY2026 press release attributes most of the $85B sequential RPO increase to large-scale AI contracts (some with customer-prepaid or customer-supplied GPUs totaling $75B) and guides FY2027 total revenue to $90B — making Oracle a primary capacity supplier to AI model builders. | A retailer that also intermediates: it sells its own sourced merchandise, hosts third-party marketplace sellers for whom it may provide "fulfillment, inventory management, tax collection, payment processing, content," sells digital advertising against that traffic, dispenses prescriptions under PBM and payer contracts, and offers financial services "including through our digital channels, stores and clubs, as well as our OnePay fintech venture." |
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| Long-horizon vote | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.30 at weight 0.20 · swarm bullish Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.05 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |