Weekly Debrief: Nvidia Spends Big on Deals as AI Chip Market Heats Up
Brookfield Enters the Cloud
Your Landlord Wants Your Margin
The hierarchy of the cloud has always been well-defined. At the top sit the "hyperscalers"—companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—who write the software, manage the customers, and capture the massive margins. At the bottom sit the infrastructure providers: the companies that
The Yield Tax
Beijing's Procurement Rule
If you manage a multi-billion dollar semiconductor fab, your professional life is governed by an unforgiving metric: yield. Yield is the percentage of chips on a silicon wafer that actually work. In the world of advanced processors, the difference between a 90% yield and an
Google's Power Play
The Energy Carve-Out
The story of the AI build-out is simple: you need more chips, which need more data centers, which need more power. An almost comical amount of power. The obvious solution, if you have infinite money, is to just go out and buy a power company.
And so,
Weekly Debrief: Intel's Foundry Plan Faces Hurdle as Nvidia Halts Chip Test
Weekly Debrief: Google Opens a New Front in the AI Chip War
Memory Oligopoly's Payday
Programming note: ARPU will be off next week, back on Dec 29.
The Seventh DRAM Cycle
If you have tried to buy computer memory recently, you may have noticed something strange. Prices have gone haywire. A kit of G.Skill 32GB DDR5 RAM that cost $125 in September is now
The AI Handholding Economy
Adoption-Impact Gap
We can think of enterprise AI adoption like a nationwide gym membership drive. In 2025, every company signed up. Executives touted their commitment to fitness on earnings calls. Employees logged into the app. Everyone has the membership card. The only problem is, almost nobody is getting stronger. And
The Logic of the AI Stack
Financing Jensen's Cake
Nvidia's Jensen Huang has offered a clean, orderly way to think about the AI economy. At a recent conference, he described the industry as a "five-layer cake." At the bottom, you have Energy. Then comes Chips, Infrastructure, AI Models, and finally,
Weekly Debrief: US Eases China Chip Ban While Wall Street Questions AI Costs