Compute & Infrastructure

The Silicon Ceiling: EUV Lithography and China’s AI Constraint

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A single industrial machine — weighing roughly 180 tons and assembled from over 100,000 precision components — may shape the trajectory of global artificial intelligence competition. Built exclusively by the Dutch firm ASML, the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanner is the only commercially available system capable of mass-producing the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips. Since … Read more

AI Reality Bursts the “Bubble”

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Introduction: Beyond the Bubble Narrative As market volatility leads some to question the longevity of the AI sector, many commentators have labeled the technology a speculative bubble. Stock-market bubbles reflect sentiment—optimism, hype, and fear—which can burst overnight. The “bubble” narrative persists because speculative frenzy in public markets is far easier to see than the technical … Read more

The Silicon Fulcrum

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Imagine if humanity received notice that a superior extraterrestrial intelligence was arriving in five years. We would unite immediately. We would pool resources. We would prepare.

But because we are building that intelligence ourselves, we are doing the opposite: fragmentation, secrecy, and zero-sum competition.

In ‘The Silicon Fulcrum,’ I argue that we are racing on a knife’s edge, dependent on a single island for the hardware that will power the most transformative event in human history. The window to fix this is closing.