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Thirteen sectors of the AI economy. A lit sector has a thesis with questions; a dark one lights up when its first thesis arrives.
Semiconductors & Compute Silicon
16 theses65 questions62 openWho designs, makes and equips the logic chips that do AI compute.Memory & Storage
5 theses21 questions21 openThe memory and storage that feed the accelerators and hold the data.Networking, Interconnect & Optics
6 theses32 questions32 openWhat moves data between chips, servers, racks and data centers.Hyperscalers, Cloud & Compute Services
23 theses79 questions73 openWho rents compute and runs models for others, and spends the capex.Data Centers & Physical Infrastructure
6 theses30 questions30 openThe buildings, land, racks, cooling and in-building electrical gear.Power, Energy & Grid
11 theses45 questions44 openThe electricity that reaches the fence, who generates it, who moves it and who pays.Materials, Industrial Supply Chain & Construction
No thesis yetThe physical inputs and the trades that build everything above.Foundation Models & AI Intelligence
10 theses39 questions39 openWho trains and serves the models, and the economics of doing it.AI Software, Applications & Agents
5 theses27 questions26 openWho turns model output into software people and firms pay for.Physical AI, Robotics & Autonomy
No thesis yetAI that moves in the physical world, and the parts it is made of.AI Security, Trust & Governance
3 theses18 questions18 openThe spend on protecting, identifying and governing AI systems and their users.AI Adoption, Productivity & Industry Transformation
8 theses42 questions42 openWhere AI changes the costs and revenues of the rest of the economy.AI Financing, Credit & Capital Structure
20 theses56 questions53 open2 settledWho lends to, invests in and insures the buildout, and on what terms.
The pulse of a sector: the mean chance that the Call’s side wins over the sector’s open questions with a known side, read three ways (the house, the readers from five, the machines); it shows from two questions.
The pulse, three ways
One index per sector, read by the house, by the readers and by the machines. When the three part by 10 points or more, that is a story.
| Sector | House | Readers | Machines | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Centers & Physical Infrastructure | 71 | — | 60 | 11 the readings part |
| Memory & Storage | 73 | — | 62 | 11 the readings part |
| AI Security, Trust & Governance | 73 | — | 66 | 7 |
| AI Software, Applications & Agents | 69 | — | 62 | 7 |
| Foundation Models & AI Intelligence | 73 | — | 66 | 7 |
| Networking, Interconnect & Optics | 72 | — | 65 | 7 |
| Semiconductors & Compute Silicon | 70 | — | 65 | 5 |
| Hyperscalers, Cloud & Compute Services | 68 | — | 66 | 2 |
| Power, Energy & Grid | 68 | — | 66 | 2 |
| AI Adoption, Productivity & Industry Transformation | 67 | — | 66 | 1 |
| AI Financing, Credit & Capital Structure | 68 | — | 67 | 1 |
Propose a question
Readers propose; the desk writes the rule and the source; the question goes out with “Proposed by” and your pseudonym. Sign in on Me to propose.
Semiconductors & Compute Silicon
Does the concentration of leading-edge chipmaking give TSMC pricing power over its customers?
Will CoreWeave report year-over-year revenue growth below 30% in any quarter reported on or before 2027-12-31?
Will a panel-level or substrate-less advanced packaging line (CoPoS, CoWoP, or OSAT 310x310mm panel) reach announced mass production for an AI accelerator product by the end of 2027?
Will HBM supply, rather than advanced packaging capacity, be named by Nvidia or TSMC as the primary accelerator supply constraint in any 2027 earnings call?
Will Nvidia's reported GAAP gross margin fall below 70% in any fiscal quarter reported between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will Broadcom's AI semiconductor revenue for fiscal 2027 (ending ~Oct/Nov 2027), as reported in its quarterly and annual results, exceed $60 billion?
Will Nvidia's data center revenue growth rate fall below Broadcom's AI semiconductor revenue growth rate for four consecutive reported quarters ending on or before 2027-12-31?
Will Chinese-made AI chips dominate new accelerator capacity in mainland China by 2027?
Will a mainland Chinese foundry other than SMIC publicly confirm volume production at a 7nm-class (N+2) or better logic node before 2027-12-31?
Will US-headquartered frontier model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta) still be unavailable for direct commercial service to mainland China customers as of 2027-09-30?
Will large software firms' gross margins drop a point or more by Q3 2027 while Nvidia's stays at or above 70%?
Will the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) total return exceed the iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF (IGV) total return over the period 2026-01-01 to 2027-09-30?
Will Amazon disclose by 2027-12-31 that its own AI chips lead a named AWS AI workload, or that AWS operating margin exceeds 38%?
Will Nvidia disclose in an SEC filing or earnings release, on or before 2027-06-30, that it recognized revenue from H200-class (or successor China-approved) data center GPU sales to customers in China?
Is the marginal buyer of AI compute real?
How much of the money buying AI chips was lent, guaranteed or invested by the companies selling them?
Memory & Storage
Will memory makers keep earning scarcity profits from AI demand through 2027?
Will Korea's monthly memory semiconductor exports set a new all-time monthly record in any month between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will DRAM contract or spot prices fall at least 30% from their 2026 peak at any point before December 31, 2027, per a dated public price series?
Will DRAM contract prices (TrendForce DXI or published DDR5 contract price index) decline by 20% or more from their 2026 peak at any point before 2027-12-31?
Will Nvidia's data center revenue growth rate for any quarter reported between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31 be explicitly attributed in its earnings call to memory (HBM) supply constraints?
Networking, Interconnect & Optics
Will the U.S. have in force, as of 2027-06-30, a tariff or import restriction specifically targeting Chinese-origin optical transceivers?
Will Taiwan-listed and US-listed optical transceiver suppliers report 1.6T module volume shipments as their largest datacom revenue contributor in any quarter reported by 2027-12-31?
Will Coherent Corp report datacom transceiver-driven Networking (Communications) segment revenue growth of at least 40% year-over-year in a fiscal quarter reported between 2026-11-15 and 2027-09-30?
Will a major optical transceiver supplier attribute a margin or revenue decline to transceiver pricing pressure between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will Ciena report fiscal-year 2027 revenue growth of at least 20% year-over-year, with cloud/hyperscaler customers cited as the primary driver?
Will Arista Networks' GAAP gross margin fall below 60% in any quarter reported before 2027-12-31?
Hyperscalers, Cloud & Compute Services
Will capital spending at Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta outrun the cash their businesses generate?
Will NVIDIA state by Nov 30, 2027 that inference is over 50% of its data center compute demand?
Will spot/on-demand hourly rental prices for NVIDIA H100 80GB SXM capacity on major public GPU marketplaces be at or above their November 2026 level as of the stated test dates in 2027?
Will at least two of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta state on a 2027 earnings call that they remain capacity- or power-constrained in AI compute?
Will three or more distinct operators publicly offer surplus internal AI compute for external resale (or disclose underutilized AI capacity) between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will aggregate 2027 capex guidance from Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta imply year-over-year growth of less than 15%?
Will cloud revenue growth at Microsoft, Google, and AWS outpace their combined depreciation growth near Q3 2027?
Will Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon each post positive free cash flow for calendar 2027?
Will Microsoft, Amazon, or Alphabet reveal that one customer makes up 10% or more of their revenue or future contracted business?
Will D&A as a share of revenue rise year-over-year for at least 3 of 4 big hyperscalers in Q3 2027 vs Q3 2026?
Will any of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, or Meta disclose a further extension of the estimated useful life of servers or network equipment in a 10-K or 10-Q filed between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will a listed AI neocloud report a GPU impairment or depreciation charge of $100M+ by end of 2027?
Will the average trailing-twelve-month ROIC of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta fall by the quarter nearest Q3 2027 versus the quarter nearest Q4 2024?
Will Oracle report, in any fiscal quarter reported between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31, a year-over-year decline in total gross margin percentage of 300 basis points or more alongside a capex guidance increase?
Will combined disclosed AI-attributed annualized revenue across the major US AI providers reach $300bn by the end of 2027 as reported in public filings or earnings disclosures?
Will combined 2027 capex from Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta grow less than 10% year over year?
Will Nvidia report a year-over-year decline in data center revenue in any fiscal quarter reported before December 31, 2027?
Is the marginal buyer of AI compute real?
Is the capex spending defense, or is the return not there?
Does the hardware hold its value?
Do the orders turn into profit?
Is AI revenue arriving fast enough for the biggest spenders to pay for their data centers out of their own cash?
How much of the money buying AI chips was lent, guaranteed or invested by the companies selling them?
Data Centers & Physical Infrastructure
Will at least one of Galaxy Digital's Helios 830 MW approved expansion or Hut 8's Beacon Point capacity be announced as contracted under a long-term lease with a named tenant by 2027-06-30?
Will LandBridge or Texas Pacific Land report surface/data-center-related revenue (surface use, easements, pore space, water) up at least 30% year over year in FY2026 results?
Will a US hyperscaler or AI cloud provider disclose a $500M or more AI/GPU-related impairment charge in a period ending by 2027-09-30?
Will CoreWeave's FY2026 Form 10-K retain a weighted-average or stated useful life of six years or more for its GPU computing equipment, with no AI-hardware impairment charge above $250M disclosed for FY2026?
Will a major AI data center operator publicly disclose, by 2027-12-31, that installed AI compute capacity of 100 MW or more is idle or revenue-deferred because of power interconnection or energization delays?
Will EIA report commercial or data-center-linked electricity sales growth above 5% year-over-year for calendar 2026, by late 2027?
Power, Energy & Grid
Will US electricity generation from natural gas in calendar year 2026 exceed the 2024 level by more than the combined increase from wind, solar, and nuclear over the same period, per EIA Electric Power Monthly?
Will the Henry Hub front-month natural gas settlement price close above $7.00/MMBtu on any trading day before 2027-12-31?
Will at least three major tech firms announce a new natural gas generation arrangement of 300 MW or more for US data centers between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will a major US hyperscaler attribute an AI capacity delay to power or grid interconnection between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will NVIDIA report data-center revenue growth of less than 15% year-over-year in any fiscal quarter reported between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31 while simultaneously citing customer power/grid availability as a factor?
Will US annual electricity sales to the commercial sector plus reported data center load growth, per EIA, show data-center-driven demand growth outpacing net generating capacity additions in 2027?
Will the EIA-reported US average residential electricity price for calendar year 2027 exceed 18.7 cents per kWh?
Will at least three US state public utility commissions approve new large-load or data center tariffs with minimum-take or exit-fee provisions between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will the five US states with the fastest 2026-2027 electricity sales growth show lower average residential price growth than the five slowest-growth states?
Is power scarcity a warning, or a moat?
Who pays for the AI power bill?
Foundation Models & AI Intelligence
Will Microsoft report a company-wide gross margin percentage for the quarter ending June 30, 2027 that is at least 100 basis points above the same quarter of fiscal 2025, as disclosed in its SEC filings?
Will the median trailing gross margin of US-listed AI-native application software companies reporting AI inference as cost of revenue be at least 70% in their fiscal 2027 filings?
Will US data center electricity consumption, as reported by EIA, grow at least 15% year-over-year in the most recent full-year or twelve-month figure published before 2027-12-31?
Will an open-weight model match or be within 2 points of the top closed model on a major coding benchmark before 2027-12-31?
Will the published list price per million output tokens of the flagship frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic fall by 50% or more from their 2026-01-01 levels by 2027-12-31?
Will the per-million-output-token list price of the flagship frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic fall by at least 40% from their 2025 levels by the end of 2027?
Will a major foundation model provider publicly disclose model/inference gross margin above 60% in a filing or audited disclosure before 2027-12-31?
SpaceX after the IPO: exit liquidity, or the next ten-bagger?
What does a frontier lab sell: a commodity, or a premium?
Does the frontier model still command a price?
AI Software, Applications & Agents
Will at least two of the five largest seat-priced software vendors report subscription revenue growth below 8% for two straight quarters before 2027-12-31?
Will at least three of five major software vendors launch a consumption or outcome-based agent pricing model as a primary option by 2027-12-31?
Will at least one major per-employee-per-month or per-seat SaaS vendor report a year-over-year decline in total paid seats or customer headcount-based billings in a public filing or earnings release before 2027-12-31?
Will at least three of five major seat-priced SaaS vendors report net revenue retention below 100% in a quarter before 2027-09-30?
How fast do habits break?
AI Security, Trust & Governance
Will CrowdStrike report ending ARR of at least $5.5B with AI-native modules cited as a growth driver by 2027-06-30?
Will the combined revenue growth of six major cybersecurity firms exceed 15% year over year for the four quarters ending near 2027-06-30?
Will at least two US-listed security or observability vendors name AI-agent governance as a specific revenue driver before 2027-09-30?
AI Adoption, Productivity & Industry Transformation
Will BLS CPS data show the employment-population ratio for workers aged 20-24 fall by at least 1.5 percentage points from its 2025 average to the trailing-12-month average ending in a month on or before November 2027?
Will Challenger, Gray & Christmas report cumulative US job cuts explicitly attributed to 'artificial intelligence' of at least 100,000 for calendar year 2027?
Will the S&P 500 ex-financials aggregate trailing-twelve-month operating margin reported for Q4 2026 exceed the Q4 2025 level by at least 50 basis points?
Will at least three of MercadoLibre, Paycom, Salesforce and Lemonade report a fiscal 2026 operating margin at least 200 basis points above their fiscal 2025 level?
Will US nonfarm business labor productivity growth, measured year-over-year, be at or above 2.5% in any quarter reported by BLS between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will the BLS nonfarm business labor share index fall below its 2025 average in the last reading published before 2027-12-31?
Will at least two of Accenture, Cognizant, Infosys, Globant and EPAM report negative year-over-year constant-currency revenue growth in any single reported quarter ending on or before 2027-09-30?
Will the largest listed customer-experience BPO operators (Teleperformance, Concentrix, TaskUs) collectively report declining organic revenue for a fiscal year covering 2026 or 2027?
AI Financing, Credit & Capital Structure
Will Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle collectively issue more than $150 billion of new corporate bonds during calendar year 2026?
Will the forward P/E multiple of the S&P 500 information technology sector contract by at least 15% from its 2026 peak level by 2027-12-31, while sector forward EPS estimates remain flat or higher?
Will the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) experience a peak-to-trough drawdown of 25% or more at any point between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will bond spreads for at least two major AI infrastructure borrowers widen 150+ basis points from Q4 2026 levels before 2027 ends?
Will at least 5 US-listed IPOs of AI-linked companies each raise $500 million or more between Jan 2026 and Sept 2027?
Will a publicly reported payment default, covenant breach, restructuring, or rating downgrade to speculative-grade occur on a GPU-collateralized loan or securitization of at least $500 million before 2027-12-31?
Will the median on-demand rental price of an Nvidia H100 80GB GPU remain at or above $1.50 per GPU-hour on a major public price index as of 2027-06-30?
Will Liberty Energy (LBRT) / Liberty Power Innovations disclose at least $1.5bn of closed non-recourse SPV project debt backed by fully executed energy services agreements by year-end 2027?
Will a US-listed GPU cloud operator record a material GPU impairment or extend GPU useful life between 2026-11-15 and 2027-12-31?
Will Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle's combined disclosed lease obligations exceed $800bn in filings for fiscal periods ending in 2026?
Will Nvidia consolidate a neocloud or data center SPV, or record at least $2bn in cumulative related impairments and credit losses, by fiscal year ending January 2028?
Is the marginal buyer of AI compute real?
SpaceX after the IPO: exit liquidity, or the next ten-bagger?
The debt behind the machines: 1999 capex, 2008 credit, or neither?
Why did the long end climb after the hike: growth, debt, or a missing buyer?
Who writes the checks for the buildout?
Does the hardware hold its value?
Can the AI trade survive a 10-year Treasury above 5% and an oil shock at the same time?
How much of the money buying AI chips was lent, guaranteed or invested by the companies selling them?
How much of the AI buildout is debt the balance sheets do not show yet, and who carries it if a tenant walks away?
The Buildout
- 17
The Guarantee Has No Date
- 16
The Seller Holds the Paper
- 15
Oil Is the Headline. The Real Yield Is the Bill.
- 14
The Cash Arrives Unevenly
- 13
The Ratepayer Pays First
- 12
The Model Is Not the Price
- 11
The Backlog Is Not the Quarter
- 10
The Bubble Is in the Denominator
- 09
Habit Was the Moat. Agents Are Draining It.
- 08
AI Lenders Are Financing the End of Scarcity
- 07
The Fed Hiked. The Long End Still Climbed.
- 06
Power Doesn’t Depreciate. Its Premium Moves.
- 05
OpenAI and Anthropic Are Not the Same Business
- 04
AI Spending Has Met Its First Real Bill
- 03
The Machines Will Work. The Debt Might Not.
- 02
SpaceX Is Funding an AI Bet Before the Proof
- 01
Nvidia’s Demand Is Real. Its Financing Is Fragile.