AI Supply Chain pt.2

Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is pt.2. Pt.1 covers the raw materials overview.

The first post catalogued what AI hardware is made from. This one tries to answer a more specific question: where in the supply chain does the actual geopolitical leverage sit?

The assumption most people carry is that it sits at extraction. For almost every mineral that matters for AI hardware, China’s share of refining and processing is substantially higher than its share of mining. Often dramatically so.

AI Supply Chain

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

AI is not purely digital infrastructure. It is an industrial system.

Last year, went down the rabbit hole on earth materials and how they fit into the theme of supply chain demand, particularly with the growth of compute required AI. Defense contracts heavily depend on lithium, especially for electronic components and warfare applications. Currently, the US mainly rely on outsourcing lithium from countries such as China and Australia.

The interesting realisation is that the bottlenecks increasingly look less like traditional software constraints and more like industrial coordination problems.

Supply-Chains on Stephanie Rebecca

AI Supply Chain pt.2

AI Supply Chain