Writes Second Order by TKN — a plain-English map of AI infrastructure and semiconductors for non-specialist investors. Focus: who gets paid, where money sticks, and which step is stuck. Not investment advice.
Wire
On 15 October Samsung said construction of a second 2nm chip plant in Taylor, Texas, starts in November, for mass production in 2030. Its first Taylor fab is still in qualification, a year late, and Tesla is the only customer it has named.
Wire
Nscale's flagship Glomfjord data center in Norway is six months behind schedule with 6.4 MW of 30 MW running, Bloomberg reported on 16 October. Its IPO filing counts $103.4 billion of contracts, $2.6 billion active, and no committed financing yet for Anthropic's Monarch build.
Catalyst
China's largest DRAM maker earned almost the same in the third quarter as the second on 15-20% more sales, so the memory shortage still pays for volume while the price lift behind it fades.
Malaysia
Malaysia's trade minister told Parliament on 15 October that data centres will pay for power they book but do not use, and must fund the grid upgrades their projects need. The cost of an empty, powered hall moves from the grid to the hall's owner.
Explained
A custom AI chip is designed by the company that will run it, then built with a design partner that turns it into a chip TSMC can make. Broadcom, Marvell, Alchip, GUC and MediaTek do that job. They get paid when chips ship; the owner gets paid only once they run.
Australia
A global tech firm, reported to be Anthropic, has taken 71 MW at DigiCo's SYD1 for 15 years. The site's edge is not the building. It is grid power that is already approved, in a Sydney where new connections are sold out until the 2030s.
Analysis
At A$26.39 Goodman trades about A$29.9 billion above book. That premium needs most of its 3.6 GW of secured power to become signed, sold halls, while only 100 MW of the 497 MW under way is leased. What the price assumes, arithmetic shown.
Wire
NiSource signed a 20-year deal on 16 October to power Microsoft's Indiana data center campus from 2028, adding about 1,100 MW to a shared pool Microsoft pays for. The only named plant is a 600 MW battery that is not binding until two contracts are signed by 31 January.
Singapore
AirTrunk has shelved its US$1.5 billion Singapore data centre REIT listing until early 2027 as rates rise and S-REITs slide. The halls are built and the debt still flows. What is stuck is the listing door: new public equity at a yield buyers will accept.
Explained
An interposer is the thin layer, usually silicon, that sits under an AI processor and its memory and wires them together. Every CoWoS package needs one, it is made in a wafer fab, and new supply from GlobalFoundries does not arrive until 2028.
Wire
On 16 October EverWind unveiled a $10 billion plan for a 420 MW data center campus and wind farms in Nova Scotia, and Anthropic signed a 20-year lease for the first 95 MW. The 325 MW expansion has no tenant named and still needs financing and grid approval.
Wire
CoreWeave's five-year default swaps passed 1,000 basis points on 15 October after Gartner forecast that most neoclouds will not stay independent by 2030. Nvidia's promise to buy unsold capacity covers empty racks, not the bonds, so the stuck step is unsecured refinancing.
