AI and energy
AI compute meets the grid.
Why this topic
Hyperscaler training and inference build-outs are now the binding load on transmission planning, water rights, and PPA pricing in every major market. The work spans GPU TCO decomposition, jurisdiction siting scores, behind-the-meter power deals, and the long-run capacity question that utilities and AI buyers are negotiating in real time. Argus and Promethean are the two production engines behind this body of work.
Recent insights on this topic
The African data center buildout 2026: Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, and Cairo
Africa hosts roughly 1.5 percent of global colocation capacity but is on track to triple installed megawatts by 2028, with Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, and Cairo ...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Compute behind a fence: US AI export controls in 2026
Four years of BIS rules have built a tiered global compute regime. The October 2022 baseline, the October 2023 patch, the December 2024 HBM and tooling rules, a...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Canada 2025 to 2026: The Trudeau Exit, the Carney Reset, and the Trump Tariff War
Justin Trudeau resigned the Liberal leadership on January 6, 2025 after a caucus revolt and a Chrystia Freeland resignation that closed the December 16, 2024 fi...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Copper and the Electrification Supercycle: Why 2026 Breaks the Bear Case
Codelco below 1.4 million tonnes, Cobre Panama still cold, AI grid copper at 3 to 4 kg per kW, and Chinese smelter TC/RC at zero. The supply side is losing its ...
Read brief → 2026-04-26The Custom Silicon Insurgency Against Nvidia in 2026
AWS Trainium 2, Google TPU v5p and Trillium, Microsoft Maia, Meta MTIA, and a possible OpenAI ASIC are reshaping where AI compute margin lives, but the binding ...
Read brief → 2026-04-26The 2026 Grid Capex Supercycle: Wires, Transformers, and the Cost of Connection
US transmission and distribution capex has tripled in a decade, EU TYNDP commits EUR 600 billion through 2034, and the binding constraint has moved from generat...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Frontier AI training cost trajectory 2026: the run rate, the deal stack, and the power-bound horizon
Frontier pretraining budgets crossed the half billion mark in 2025 and are heading toward one to three billion dollars per model by 2027, with cluster power, no...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Generative Video AI in 2026: Compute Economics, Hollywood Disruption, and the Copyright Reckoning
Frontier video models now generate 1080p clips in single-digit seconds, training runs cleared USD 100 million per system, and inference still costs cents per ou...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Hyperscaler GPU Procurement 2026: H200 vs B200 vs GB200 in Honest Deployment Math
Blackwell is no longer a roadmap promise, it is a procurement reality, and the only honest comparison runs on workload-weighted utilization rather than peak FLO...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Korea's Memory Cycle 2026: HBM Lead, Logic Gap, Cluster Risk
SK hynix runs the HBM3e 12-Hi book at Nvidia, Samsung Memory chases qualification while its foundry yield gap widens, and the Yongin cluster meets a hard power ...
Read brief → 2026-04-26The 2026 to 2027 LNG supply wave: 130 mtpa of new liquefaction, Henry Hub pressure, and the buyer's window
Five United States projects plus the Qatari North Field expansion add roughly 130 million tonnes per year of nameplate liquefaction between 2025 and 2027. Henry...
Read brief → 2026-04-26Long duration storage 2026: the four day battery becomes bankable
The LDES Council target of 4 day median duration, the IRA Section 48E investment tax credit at 30 to 50 percent, and Form Energy's first commercial iron air blo...
Read brief →Related cross-cuts.
Critical minerals
Lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earths sit upstream of every EV, every battery, every grid build, and every advanced semiconductor. The work...
The post-2024 trade architecture.Trade and tariffs
Section 301 escalations, Section 232 metals overlays, IEEPA reciprocal regimes, and IRA sourcing rules together produce a tariff stack that no single HS6 line f...
The new debt cycle.Sovereign credit
IMF program math, Common Framework restructurings, and the creditor coordination problem (especially the China bilateral position) define the sovereign credit s...
The messy economics of decarbonization.Energy transition
Renewables build, gas-peaker reliance, LNG export queues, hydrogen offtake, SAF feedstock, and CCUS subsidies do not resolve into a single trajectory. The work ...
Commodity volatility meets food security.Food and agriculture
Wheat, rice, cocoa, coffee, edible oils, and fertilizer prices feed directly into current-account stress, social safety-net design, and political stability in i...
Frontier and EM macro.Emerging markets
EM macro in 2026 is dominated by IMF program design, LDC graduation transitions, FX management under Fed-cycle pressure, and industrial-policy bets that have to...
The new industrial-defense complex.Defense and geopolitics
Ukraine reconstruction, NATO 2 percent floors, AUKUS submarine timelines, and the antitrust and export-control overlay on dual-use technology have rewired the i...