OpenAI's dominance is unlike anything Silicon Valley has ever seen (www.cnbc.com)

OpenAI has rapidly evolved into a uniquely dominant, privately held powerhouse, striking infrastructure partnerships with Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle and AMD while rolling out consumer and developer-facing products at high velocity. In recent weeks it unveiled Sora (now Sora 2 in the API), announced general availability of Codex as a software-engineering agent at DevDay, and continues to scale ChatGPT to roughly 800 million weekly users. The company’s $500B-era momentum is fueled by a broad vertical strategy — from data-center deals endorsed at the White House level to talent hires like Jony Ive aimed at bespoke AI hardware — enabled by abundant private capital and aggressive cash deployment. For AI/ML practitioners and startups this concentration of capability matters technically and strategically. Foundational-model competition (OpenAI vs. Anthropic, Google, Meta) is less about immutable technical moats and more about momentum, distribution and integrated stacks: models + APIs + infrastructure + apps. That raises the bar for newcomers but also expands addressable markets (examples: Quilter for PCB design, Exa Labs for AI-native search). Practical implications include faster commoditization of base models, increased reliance on third-party APIs, potential vertical integration risks (platforms competing with customers), and a safer playbook for startups focused on regulated verticals or specialized tooling that OpenAI is less likely to prioritize.