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.
| KLA Corporation | IREN | |
|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | wide The fiscal 2026 10-K states 'The strength of our competitive positions in many of our existing markets is primarily due to our leading technology', and frames process control as 'an essential enabler' of the yield ramp in fabs the filing says now cost 'well above $10 billion'. | none The FY2026 10-K (filed 2026-08-27) shows IREN holds an input the industry competes on: it names 'access to secured and energized power' first among what it believes are the principal competitive factors in its industry, and reports 'executed grid connection agreements, letters of agreement or equivalents representing approximately 5GW of total power capacity' in the United States, Canada, Spain and Australia as of June 30, 2026. It does not claim an advantage over rivals in that input. It says 'Certain competitors may have access to more competitively priced power, a greater access to power and a better capacity to timely secure grid connections,' and 'Many of our competitors have greater financial, technical or commercial resources, longer cloud operating histories or larger customer bases, compared to us.' Operating AI Cloud Services capacity was approximately 40MW at June 30, 2026, and the stored XBRL fundamentals from this 10-K show an FY2026 operating loss of about $1,046.7M on revenue of about $707.0M, so no durable advantage is yet demonstrated. |
| Moat type | intangibles ip The 10-K reports over 9,100 active patents and over 3,600 pending applications with terms running through 2045, alongside proprietary process-control software (Klarity, I-PAT, aiSIGHT) that turns inspection and metrology data into yield learning. | none The FY2026 10-K's asserted advantage is control from owning its data centers, 'including the associated land, grid connections and substations', which it believes allows it 'to benefit from more sustainable cash flows and operational flexibility relative to operators that rely upon third-party colocation services or short-term land leases'. Its only scale language is a belief that its 'procurement scale, deployment experience and direct control over the data center layer' lets it bring new compute into service 'rapidly and at scale', a deployment-speed claim, and it 'generally target[s]' regions with 'low-cost and attractive renewable energy sources', a siting target rather than a demonstrated cost position. It does not claim a cost or scale lead: it says 'Many of our competitors are larger, have longer operating histories and significantly greater resources than we do' and that certain competitors 'may have access to more competitively priced power, a greater access to power and a better capacity to timely secure grid connections.' There is no network effect or lock-in either, since existing contracts have 'terms ranging from month to month up to five years'. No enumerated moat source is grounded. |
| Leadership | clear leader The 10-K opens by describing KLA as a supplier of 'industry-leading equipment and services' and attributes its competitive positions 'in many of our existing markets' primarily to leading technology; named competitors are Applied Materials, ASML, Hitachi High-Tech, Lasertec and Onto Innovation. | behind The 10-K lists IREN's competitors as hyperscalers (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud) and specialized AI Cloud Services providers (CoreWeave, Nebius, Crusoe, Lambda, Nscale, SpaceX and others). It says IREN began providing AI Cloud Services in 2024 and cites its 'shorter operating history in AI Cloud Services relative to some competitors', and states 'Some of our competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, more comprehensive IP portfolios and patent protections, more design wins, and greater financial, sales, marketing and distribution resources than we do.' Operating AI Cloud Services capacity was approximately 40MW at June 30, 2026. The filing describes a smaller, later entrant that trails some competitors on operating history, customer base and resources, with its progress so far resting on two anchor contracts (a ~$9.7B five-year Microsoft agreement and a ~$3.4B five-year NVIDIA contract) rather than any claimed category position. |
| Pricing power | strong Services were approximately 23% of fiscal 2026 total revenues on an installed base that recurs, backlog nearly doubled to $12.57 billion, and SEC-reported net income was 35.6% of revenue in fiscal 2026 with operating income at 41.2% of revenue in fiscal 2025. | weak The 10-K's risk factors state 'Our competitors' products, services and technologies may be cheaper or provide better functionality or features than ours, which has resulted and may in the future result in lower-than-expected selling prices or demand for our products.' They also say long-term contract pricing 'is generally fixed or agreed at the time of contracting', so if market pricing for comparable capacity rises during a contract's term 'we will not benefit from those increases with respect to capacity already committed under our existing long-term contracts', and that if customers suffer a downturn or discontinue its services it 'may be compelled to offer more flexible terms, lower our prices or risk losing a significant customer.' The stored XBRL fundamentals from this 10-K show FY2026 revenue of about $707.0M against an operating loss of about $1,046.7M, so there is no margin record yet that evidences pricing power. |
| Summary | KLA sells the inspection, metrology and yield-management layer a fab must run to reach volume production: the 10-K says accelerating the yield ramp ahead of competitors is critical to chipmakers' profitability, and backlog nearly doubled from $7.86 billion to $12.57 billion in the year to June 30, 2026 'due to strong demand driven by the AI infrastructure buildout'. | Per its FY2026 10-K, IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud Services platform that owns the data center, compute and software layers, underpinned by executed grid connection agreements, letters of agreement or equivalents representing ~5GW and a further multi-GW development pipeline. Its commercial record is concentrated: a five-year Microsoft agreement (~$9.7B total contract value, Horizon 1 delivered and accepted in August 2026, Horizons 2-4 targeted for delivery in phases in calendar Q4 2026) and a five-year ~$3.4B NVIDIA cloud contract together make up a substantial majority of contracted revenue. It holds NVIDIA Preferred Partner and Exemplar Cloud status (HGX B300 and GB300 NVL72) and a strategic partnership intended to support the deployment over time of up to 5GW of NVIDIA DSX-aligned infrastructure, which the filing cites among arrangements that are non-binding or subject to conditions, with no assurance as to the extent of deployments. Against that, the filing names hyperscaler and specialized competitors (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, CoreWeave, Nebius, Crusoe, Lambda, Nscale, SpaceX), many of which it says have greater resources, customers that can use or develop their own solutions, and possible delays to Texas energization from changes to ERCOT's Batch Zero procedures, so the power position is not a demonstrated advantage over rivals and its value depends on execution. |
| Chain position | Sits beside the process steps rather than in them — it measures and inspects what deposition, etch and lithography produce, and TSMC alone exceeded 10% of revenue in each of the last three fiscal years. | Downstream AI-cloud operator: owns grid-connected data centers and deploys NVIDIA/AMD GPU systems it rents to hyperscalers, frontier labs, AI developers and enterprises (anchor customers Microsoft and NVIDIA). |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.42 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.20 at weight 0.20 · swarm bearish Editorial prior, not backtested. |