SemiAnalysis Weekly

Recorded Election Day morning, before any results: SemiAnalysis’s model has about 62 GW of US datacenter additions in 2028, most not yet under construction and sitting in states electing a governor. Texas alone is close to 30%.Jordan Nanos (@JordanNanos) sits down with Maya Barkin (@mayabarkin), Wayne Ma (@waynema) and Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros (@JeremieEO) on why 2027 is largely locked in, why the backlash crosses party lines, and how developers can win over their neighbors.Since recording: the AP called Texas for Gina Hinojosa, who would pause datacenter permitting, and Georgia for Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Democrats took a 3-2 majority on Georgia’s Public Service Commission, which sets power rates. (As of Nov 4, 2:35 PM ET.)Read the article: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/the-datacenter-backlash-goes-bipartisan0:00 Intro0:54 The 2028 Buildout5:32 Pause vs. Conditions10:03 Bipartisan Backlash14:37 Grid Risk16:30 Tax Incentives19:51 Texas24:34 Risks to 202730:23 Georgia32:31 Federal Outlook35:20 Winning Over Neighbors42:04 What We're Watching

SemiAnalysis just launched GDPx, a benchmark built with 14 specialized data partners across 11 domains where frontier intelligence earns the highest returns. Even the best model scores just 12%. Jordan Nanos (@JordanNanos) sits down with Max Kan (@maxkan) and Andrew Megalaa (@AndrewMegalaa) to explain why most popular benchmarks are broken, the difference between difficult and unfair tasks, how a real private equity deal room became a finance environment, why binary grading still matters, and what the leaderboard says about Opus 5.5, GPT-6 Astra and Gemini 4 Carbon.Explore GDPx: https://gdpx.semianalysis.comRead the article: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/gdpx-measuring-frontier-model-capabilitiesWant your model evaluated or to partner on a future version? [email protected]:00 Cold Open0:10 Launch Week Chaos4:02 Broken Benchmarks5:15 Difficult vs. Unfair7:33 Building GDPx9:25 Frontier Domains11:02 The 11 Domains14:12 Domain Experts15:00 Models vs. Experts19:36 Model Behavior20:44 The Leaderboard22:33 Cyber and Safety24:32 Frontier vs. Day-to-Day27:13 The Finance Task31:27 Binary vs. Partial Grading36:48 AI and Jobs42:43 Quick Takes43:44 Google's Comeback47:25 Public vs. Private Tasks49:52 What's Next

Anthropic filed its S-1: revenue per dollar of compute is up 5.2x since Q1 2025, a customer who spent $1 last year now spends $9, and incremental gross margins are running near 90%. Jordan Nanos (@JordanNanos), Doug O'Laughlin (@fabknowledge), Jeremie Eliahou Ontiveros (@JeremieEO) and Joey Brookhart (@SaasquatchC) break down profitability, the half trillion in compute commitments, customer concentration, the 2027 compute roadmap, and whether OpenAI can keep up.0:00 Cold Open0:53 Profitability2:10 The Datacenter View4:14 Compute Commitments6:28 Incremental Margins8:19 Customer Concentration12:00 Top Customers16:53 New Funding18:54 Underpromise, Overdeliver20:25 Elon and Neoclouds25:14 Compute Efficiency29:40 Can Anyone Catch Up?33:26 Surprises and Runway37:47 Market Reaction39:02 Holiday Usage42:56 Is OpenAI Cooked?48:44 Government Revenue50:45 Wrap-Up

Every hybrid bonder on the market today brings the die to the wafer. ASML's patents bring the wafer to the die.Sherry Zhang and Howie join Jordan Nanos (@jordananos) to dig into the patents behind ASML's die-to-wafer hybrid bonder, why a track-based design could beat Besi on alignment and particle control, and why HBM won't adopt die-to-wafer hybrid bonding before 2029. The team also looks at how China is using hybrid bonding to keep scaling past its lithography limits, and what larger photomasks mean for High-NA EUV.Chapters:0:00 The Patent Tip-Off1:53 Hybrid Bonding 1014:06 Die-to-Wafer vs Wafer-to-Wafer5:43 Back End vs Front End8:05 Why HBM Waits Until 202913:45 Everything Comes to the Die18:26 Alignment and Cleanliness22:48 Bonding Instead of Shrinking25:49 China's Toolmakers Step Up28:25 Bigger Masks for High-NA33:29 Two Tool Stacks?Read the full article: ASML Is Building a Hybrid Bonding Tool!https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/asml-is-building-a-hybrid-bonding

Brad Gerstner put our 43 gigawatt forecast for 2027 on All-In, then again in his BG2 sit-down with Jensen, and called it too aggressive. The consensus counter sits near 25 GW, built on moratorium headlines and grid connection fears. Jordan Nanos (@JordanNanos) sits down with Jeremie Ontiveros (@JeremieEO) and Reyk Knuhtsen (@robotknower), who have been tracking the same capacity curve since March 2024, and it has barely moved across every model revision. So they aren't cutting it. They're raising it.Read the article: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/datacenters-2027-the-year-of-acceleration0:00 Cold Open1:17 The 2027 Forecast Debate2:21 Model Track Record5:27 Where the Pushback Comes From8:16 Delays and Haircuts12:31 The Top 40 Sites15:23 Leading Indicators20:40 Modular Builds25:41 Chips vs Datacenters27:53 Responding to Brad Gerstner