At a time when Washington is tightening the screws on China’s tech sector, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is striking a different tone — one that suggests the race for AI dominance isn’t as lopsided as U.S. policy might hope.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday at a technology conference in the U.S. capital, Huang offered a stark reality check: China is not trailing the United States in artificial intelligence, at least not by much.

“We are very close,” Huang said. “Remember, this is a long-term, infinite race.”

It was a moment of candor that clashed sharply with prevailing narratives in Washington, where policymakers are increasingly treating China’s AI ambitions as something to be thwarted rather than matched. For Huang, however, the threat isn’t just China’s growing capability — it’s the risk that the U.S. might hobble itself through overregulation and protectionism.

Huang, who has led Nvidia through its meteoric rise as the engine room of the AI revolution, didn’t mince words when he spoke of Huawei, the Chinese firm that has been a central target of U.S. sanctions.

“They’re incredible in computing and network technology,” Huang said. “They have made enormous progress in the last several years.”

Huawei, though largely cut off from American tech due to a trade blacklist, has reportedly been building its own AI chips for domestic customers — a move that speaks to Beijing’s push for self-reliance in strategic technologies. And while the U.S. has sought to curb those ambitions through export controls, Nvidia’s own experience shows the limits of that approach.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration imposed new restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 chips, a China-compliant version of its Hopper architecture, barring shipments without a license. That decision, Nvidia said, will cost the company an estimated $5.5 billion in revenue. The irony? The H20 was designed precisely to comply with prior U.S. curbs, underscoring how rapidly Washington is shifting the goalposts.

For Huang, the fallout highlights a deeper risk, not just to Nvidia, but to America’s tech leadership itself.

“This is an industry that we will have to compete for,” he said. “We should focus on making U.S. companies more competitive, not just limiting others.”

Nvidia is trying to do just that. The company recently announced plans to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next five years, part of a broader push to onshore manufacturing and strengthen its domestic footprint. Huang confirmed Wednesday that Nvidia intends to build its AI devices in the U.S., with Foxconn set to assemble AI servers near Houston.

“With willpower and the resources of our country, I’m certain we can manufacture onshore,” he said.

President Trump, speaking the same day, applauded Nvidia’s domestic push and referred to Huang as “my friend Jensen” — a sign that despite current regulatory hurdles, the company still commands political favor in Washington’s shifting sands.

But Wall Street remains wary. Nvidia’s stock has dropped more than 20% this year, erasing part of the staggering gains it posted in 2024, when demand for AI chips seemed insatiable. The stock fell nearly 3% on Wednesday, reflecting investor anxiety over tighter export rules, global market instability, and growing competition abroad — not just from AMD and Intel, but from homegrown Chinese challengers like Huawei.

As China races to replicate or leapfrog technologies it can no longer easily import, the landscape is beginning to fracture. The world is inching toward two AI ecosystems: one rooted in Silicon Valley, the other in Shenzhen. In such a world, Huang’s warning that this is an “infinite race” seems less like a metaphor, and more like the defining reality of a new tech Cold War.

Against this backdrop, Nvidia’s challenge now is to stay at the forefront of that race, without being tripped by the very country it calls home.

The Startup Incentive Construct explains why startups often outperform established companies despite having fewer resources. The central idea is that older companies, while having advantages like money and experience, often misalign their incentives when addressing problems. They tend to adapt problems to fit their existing incentives, causing them to focus on the wrong issues and lose out to startups. Startups possess different incentives, giving them inherent advantages. Established companies often experience an “Innovation Hangover,” making it difficult for them to sacrifice current revenue for new opportunities.

In this piece, I explain why startups win, despite the efforts of older companies who challenge them in new areas they are pioneering. The older companies can come with money, experience and technology, but most times, they are solving problems, with the wrong incentives.

Consequently, they adjust the problems to accommodate their incentives and in the process, solve an entirely different problem, resulting to a loss. You read it from me: African and specifically Nigerian startups, you can win over the big players. Your incentives are different, and those are inherent advantages for you.

The established companies have what I have called Innovation Hangover which is an inertia to cannibalize existing revenue sources for new opportunities. See it this way: If you run a treasury operation in a bank which will yield $5,000 profit but your fintech unit (a subsidiary) can do the same for $200, would you dismantle that treasury unit, and allow the fintech unit to serve the public because one fintech startup has started offering the service for $200?

That is not what we do most times because of the revenue/profit hangover. So, what happens is this: to fix that problem, the bank has to create a new market friction, and try to solve it. Possibly, that new problem can yield for the bank $1,000 profit, and it can feel that it has innovated, and has challenged the startup on pricing. Indeed, it could offer more features and services than what the fintech startup is offering for $200.

Yet, that is not the original friction which the standalone startup went for. Typically, over time, the startup can still win because the incumbent is hanging onto the established profits, and solving entirely new problems. I have called this Startup Incentive Construct.

For more than two decades, Google has been the near-undisputed gatekeeper of the internet, guiding how billions access information. But a noticeable shift is now underway — one that could mark the beginning of a new era in digital search.

Google’s global search market share has fallen below 90% for the first time since 2015, underlining a growing disenchantment with its dominance, a mounting legal siege from regulators, and a wave of new challengers powered by artificial intelligence.

In March 2025, Google’s share of global search traffic dropped to 89.71%, according to figures from Statcounter — a continuation of a downward trend that began in October 2024. While that number might still seem unassailable, it represents a symbolic and significant threshold. Google has not dipped below 90% in almost a decade. And what’s emerging now isn’t a statistical anomaly, but a signal of a sustained shift.

On desktop devices, historically one of Google’s strongholds, the decline is sharper. From 87.65% in May 2023, its share has plummeted to 79.1%. In Europe, where regulatory scrutiny of Big Tech has long been fierce, Google’s desktop search market share fell even further to 77.78% as of March 2025.

At The Back of DOJ’s Antitrust Case

The numbers land at a precarious moment for Google. In the U.S., the Department of Justice is intensifying its efforts to dismantle what it calls an illegal monopoly. As part of its sweeping antitrust lawsuit, the DOJ is reportedly pushing for Google to sell major parts of its ecosystem, particularly its Chrome browser, arguing that its bundling with Google Search gives the company an unfair advantage by making it the default experience for millions.

Regulators allege that Chrome, Android, and exclusive agreements with Apple and other device manufacturers create a “self-reinforcing cycle” that locks users into Google products and blocks competition. If the courts agree, Google may be forced to sell or separate Chrome from its advertising and search business — a structural remedy that could radically alter the internet’s balance of power.

That legal threat coincides with real-world user behavior now beginning to reflect the cracks in that ecosystem. As users start turning off Google as their default, the company’s dominance is no longer assumed, and challengers are beginning to capitalize.

The AI Search Disruption

One of the most potent disruptions comes not from traditional competitors like Bing, but from the explosion of generative AI tools. OpenAI, in particular, has emerged as an unexpected rival in the search space — not through a search engine per se, but by fundamentally changing how users seek information.

With the launch of ChatGPT plugins and integration with Microsoft’s Bing, OpenAI has turned conversational AI into a de facto search layer. Millions now turn to AI tools to answer queries, summarize news, generate explanations, and even compare products — tasks that would have otherwise started with a Google search.

More recently, OpenAI began experimenting with its own web-browsing capabilities built into ChatGPT, directly challenging Google’s core function. Users increasingly rely on AI-generated responses instead of combing through links or ad-heavy search results. For many, it’s faster, cleaner, and less intrusive.

This AI-fueled behavioral shift is already reshaping search expectations. Google’s efforts to keep pace, including the rollout of AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), have been met with mixed responses. Critics argue that Google’s results now feel cluttered, biased toward sponsored content, and overly engineered.

While AI is pulling users away from traditional search, the decline in Google’s market share is also being driven by a groundswell of privacy concerns, ad fatigue, and growing distrust of monopolistic platforms. European search engines like Ecosia and Qwant are experiencing surging user numbers. Ecosia, which donates profits to environmental causes and does not track users, reports a 250% jump in traffic since late 2024.

Microsoft’s Bing, despite years in Google’s shadow, is also regaining relevance — thanks largely to its integration with AI. Bing is now baked into Windows 11, Edge, and ChatGPT, creating new channels of discovery.

Even Apple long speculated to be building its own search engine, has intensified its efforts to reduce reliance on Google — especially as it faces heat over accepting billions annually to make Google the iPhone’s default search engine.

A Systemic Erosion, Not a Sudden Collapse

Some observers may dismiss a 1% dip as inconsequential. But when applied to the scale of the internet, where over 5 billion people use search engines, that shift represents more than 50 million users no longer defaulting to Google. And that number appears to be growing each month.

Many believe that the erosion of Google’s monopoly may not come from a single blow but from the cumulative effect of public fatigue, regulatory intervention, and evolving technology. However, the search giant is far from surrendering its crown. With nearly 90% of the global market, vast cash reserves, and technical muscle, the company remains a titan. But its grip is loosening — and that matters.