SemiAnalysis Weekly

Jordan Nanos, Doug O'Laughlin
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Everything semiconductors and AI Covering the spectrum

  1. 1d ago

    Ep. 032 - 300 Datacenter Bans, 3 Projects Delayed: Moratoriums Explained (Datacenter, Energy) | Maya Barkin, Reyk Knühtsen, Jordan Nanos

    More than 300 towns, cities, and counties have voted to pause data centers in the past 18 months. Maya Barkin (@mayabarkin) and Reyk Knühtsen (@robotknower) from the SemiAnalysis Data Center, Energy, and Industrials team join Jordan Nanos (@jordannanos) to explain what a moratorium actually is, how they mapped every one of them against the US project pipeline, and why only three projects are being delayed. Plus: the SpaceX de-annexation in Brownsville, New York vs Texas, why politicians love a moratorium, and the surprising amount of alpha in anti-data center Facebook groups. Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros (@JeremieEO) drops in from Bangkok. Read More: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/everyone-says-datacenter-moratoriums 0:00 Intro 0:36 What Is a Moratorium 4:34 300 Moratoriums, 3 Projects 10:18 Behind the Meter Wins 14:04 Eight Conditions to Delay 17:06 The SpaceX De-Annexation 20:03 Cheap Political Signaling 32:03 New York vs Texas 41:14 City Council Alpha 46:32 Advice for Developers

  2. 3d ago

    Ep. 031 - EMERGENCY EPISODE: Are We Doomed? | Jordan Nanos, Doug O'Laughlin, Max Kan, Joey Brookhart

    Emergency episode. Doug O'Laughlin (@Fabknowledge) , Joey Brookhart (@SaasquatchC), and Max Kan (@maxkan) join Jordan (@JordanNanos) to talk through Dario's "We Must Pace the Frontier" blog and the responses from Sam Altman and David Sacks. Does pacing actually mean less compute, or a lot more? Plus the Hugging Face incident, Moonshot serving Claude, and the security behaviour that keeps them up at night. 0:00 Cold Open 2:50 Glorified Neoclouds 8:21 Pacing the Frontier 12:53 Safety Eats Compute 20:38 Hugging Face Lessons 30:52 Moonshot Serving Claude 36:37 The Coxson Resignation 38:27 Two-Year Predictions 49:19 Regulation Under Trump 57:21 Hotter or Cooler

  3. 5d ago

    Ep. 030 - Long Live the Short King: Why 4-HI HBM Wins (Memory) | Myron Xie, Jordan Nanos

    NVIDIA previewed Rubin Ultra at 1TB of HBM per package. The part that ships will carry 192GB. Myron Xie and Jordan Nanos get into how the design fell that far, why the reason is supply and not performance, and why shipping less memory per chip might be the right call anyway. For the first time in recent memory, NVIDIA's next flagship will have less capacity than the one it replaces. Read More: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/long-live-the-short-king-why-4-hi

  4. Sep 11

    Ep. 029 - Modular Data Centers Cut Build Time to 12 Months (Datacenter, Energy) | Nico Bontigui, Jordan Nanos, Nigel Chiang, Eric Wen

    Traditional data center builds ran 18 to 24 months, sometimes past three years. Modular construction cuts that to 12. Jordan Nanos (@JordanNanos) sits down with Eric Wen, Nigel Chiang, and Nico Bontigui to map what modular actually means, from MEP heavy skids to full containerized builds. They break down why the bottleneck moved from construction time to labor, why welders and electricians are the real constraint in Abilene, and how time to power translates directly into tokens at 40 to 100 million dollars per megawatt. Subscribe for weekly SemiAnalysis coverage on data center construction, prefabrication, and AI infrastructure. 0:00 Cold Open 1:09 What Is Modular 4:03 Why Go Modular 5:55 Time to Power Math 9:04 Labor Wage Data 13:51 Two Kinds of Bottlenecks 18:24 Site, Shell, System 22:31 Who Owns the Risk 26:59 Trucks and Insurance 30:53 Who Supplies the Modules 35:50 Commissioning Reality 41:39 Vendor Map and Wrap Read More: The Wild Wild West Of LEGO Datacenters: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/the-wild-wild-west-of-lego-datacenters

  5. Sep 2

    Ep. 028 - Most Neoclouds Suck At Security: How Agents Hacked Hugging Face (Neoclouds, Security) | Doug O'Laughlin, Sam Harshe, Jordan Nanos

    This week Doug, Sam and Jordan discuss the OpenAI vs HuggingFace security incident and our recent article on Neocloud security ahead of ClusterMAX 3.0 Full article: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/most-neoclouds-suck-at-security 0:00 Cold Open 0:57 Neocloud Security 4:38 The Hugging Face Hack 11:47 Agent Swarm Behavior 14:47 Obliterated Models 20:37 Security as a Service 24:30 What the Data Shows 33:08 Attacker Asymmetry 40:55 Nothing Ever Happens 45:22 CMAX Audit

  6. Aug 30

    Ep. 027 - OpenAI Jalapeño: Better Than Nvidia Blackwell (Accelerators)

    This week Bryan, Myron and Jordan discuss our recent article on OpenAI Jalapeño. They cover the performance, architecture, programming model, implications for NVIDIA and more.1:05 Jalapeno Overview4:22 Tokens Per Megawatt9:15 Benchmark Caveats13:48 The CUDA Moat21:12 How OpenAI Did It32:13 Samsung HBM442:10 AI-Designed Silicon49:24 Architecture Deep Dive56:58 Doom and Wrap Full Article: ⁠https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/openai-jalapeno-better-than-nvidia

  7. Aug 20

    Ep. 026 - PJM's $12B Modeling Mistake Is Hitting Ratepayers Again (Datacenter, Energy) | Robert Boswall, Jordan Nanos

    PJM overpaid $12 billion across two capacity auctions, and the same modeling error is set to repeat in an upcoming emergency auction. Robert Boswall (@RobertBoswall) and Jordan Nanos (@JordanNanos) break down how the largest grid in America, 13 states and 66 million people, inflates demand while constraining supply. The result is scarcity pricing that ratepayers absorb, not the data centers driving the narrative. Of the $63 billion spent across four auctions, Boswell estimates $12 billion was avoidable, split $7 billion and $5 billion across the 2025-26 and 2026-27 auctions. This is the mechanics behind every headline blaming AI for rising power bills. Subscribe for weekly analysis on grid design, capacity markets, and AI energy demand! 0:00 Cold Open1:33 What Is PJM3:13 Capacity Auctions7:39 The $12 Billion12:33 How Plants Get Paid15:15 The Winterization Gap21:17 Data Center Demand26:41 The Emergency Auction30:00 Board Overrules Members40:32 Turning It Around Article: https://open.substack.com/pub/semianalysis/p/12b-of-us-ratepayers-money-wasted

  8. Aug 17

    Ep. 25 - DYLAN IS HERE, LIVE! | Dylan Patel & Jordan Nanos

    Dylan joins the pod today, recorded live from our SF office. Jordan and Dylan discuss SemiAnalysis's AI spend, the model that escaped during training, AI rollups eating private equity, new accelerators vs NVIDIA, and whether the pod gives away too much information for free.0:00 Cold Open5:25 SA AI Spend9:29 AI Performance Reviews10:40 AI Rollups13:47 The Agent Moment15:28 The Escaped Model18:11 Model Exponential22:52 Compute and Chips30:18 Open Models32:00 ADHD and AI

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About

Everything semiconductors and AI Covering the spectrum

Information

  • Creator
    Jordan Nanos, Doug O'Laughlin
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Jordan Nanos, Doug O'Laughlin
  • Show Website
    SemiAnalysis Weekly

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