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.
| Coca-Cola | Applied Digital | Alibaba Group | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | wide The FY2025 10-K's own competitive-strengths list leads with "leading brands with high levels of consumer recognition and loyalty" and "a worldwide network of bottlers and distributors of Company products", and the trademarks behind those brands are "valid as long as they are in use and/or their registrations are properly maintained" — an IP right the filing gives no expiry. Gross margin rose 59.5% to 61.1% to 61.6% across FY2023-FY2025 on the XBRL in the same annual filings, in an industry the filing itself calls "highly competitive". | 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 The FY2026 20-F rests on two entrenched positions: a commerce ecosystem the filing ties to 'the world's largest online retail market' with 'over 1.1 billion Internet users,' and a cloud business whose 'Cloud Intelligence Group's external revenue growth accelerated to 40% in the final quarter of fiscal 2026, with AI-related products accounting for 30% of this revenue.' Two durable franchises under one roof is a wide moat — bounded by China regulation and US ICTS cloud controls the same filing flags. |
| Moat type | intangibles ip The filing locates the durable assets in intellectual property rather than scale: "our sparkling beverage and other beverage formulas are among the important trade secrets of our Company", and "We also own numerous trademarks that are very important to our business", which are "valid as long as they are in use and/or their registrations are properly maintained" — unlike a patent, no fixed term. | 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. | network effects The 20-F names 'the network effects of our ecosystems' among the factors its business depends on: Taobao and Tmall, Alipay, Amap and the rest compound as buyers, sellers and services reinforce each other across one integrated ecosystem. |
| Leadership | co leader The filing claims leading BRANDS but never category leadership, and names "PepsiCo, Inc." as "a primary competitor" in many countries, alongside Nestle S.A., Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., Danone S.A., Suntory Beverage & Food Limited, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kirin Holdings, Heineken N.V., Diageo plc and Red Bull GmbH. | 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). | clear leader The 20-F claims leadership in applied AI ('strengthened our leadership in applied AI') and roots the commerce business in the world's largest online retail market; Alibaba Cloud is the leading China hyperscaler pivoting to AI, per the segment discussion — a category leader in both its home markets. |
| Pricing power | strong Three consecutive years of gross-margin expansion — 59.5% (FY2023), 61.1% (FY2024), 61.6% (FY2025) — through an inflationary period. The filing discloses the countervailing force itself: competitive pressures "may restrict our and our bottlers' ability to increase prices". | 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 Ecosystem lock-in and cloud scale support pricing, but the filing warns that if 'user activity and engagement in our ecosystem may decrease … our market share and profitability may be negatively affected,' and Chinese e-commerce/cloud competition is intense — real but capped pricing power. |
| Summary | The asset is the trademarks and the secret formulas behind them; the bottling network is how they reach a shelf. The 10-K's own strengths list names both. What caps the moat sits on the same page: the competitive challenges include "a concentrated retail sector with powerful buyers able to freely choose among Company products, products of competitive beverage suppliers and individual retailers' own store or private-label beverage brands". | 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. | Alibaba is a commerce network and an AI cloud fused into one ecosystem. The retail side draws its moat from network effects the filing names explicitly, rooted in the world's largest online retail market; the cloud side is pivoting hard into AI — Alibaba Cloud's 'growth engine fully pivots from traditional compute and storage to models, AI compute, and agent services,' anchored by the in-house Qwen family (Qwen3.7-Max 'specifically engineered for agents') and the PAI platform. The 20-F's own framing is 'leading full-stack capabilities across the AI value chain.' The counterweights are structural rather than competitive: a Cayman VIE structure, China's regulatory environment, and the US Commerce Department's proposed ICTS cloud-computing controls the filing discloses. |
| Chain position | Outside this graph's supply chain: an AI-adopting incumbent whose beverage business buys AI as a tool rather than supplying it. | Developer and landlord of power-advantaged, liquid-cooled AI data-center capacity, leased long-term to CoreWeave and investment-grade hyperscalers. | Layer-8 hyperscaler + AI-application incumbent: Alibaba Cloud supplies AI compute and the Qwen models while the commerce ecosystem is a vast applied-AI distribution surface. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.35 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | +0.38 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |