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.
Malaysia
TNB had 42 data centre projects plugged into Malaysia's grid by June 2026, with room for 5.65 GW. They drew 1,256 MW. On 9 Oct the Budget papers said data centre demand could reach 12.9 GW by 2030. The power company is paid on the booking; halls get paid as they fill.
Analysis
Big new data centers now pay at least 75% of their power bill, used or not, and post security before power flows. The floor is affordable. The security is the cost. Who gets paid first?
Wire
Nvidia-backed Firmus pulled its A$43.7 billion ASX float on 9 October. It has 46 MW running and about 865 MW still being built. The contracts pay only once halls are live, and the money to build them just walked away.
Australia
On 1 Oct 2026 New South Wales approved two Sydney data centres, Microsoft's 96 MW Huntingwood hall and Stockland's 34.3 MW Macquarie Park tower. Neither can switch on until its full power use is matched with new, firmed clean power from NSW. Halls already past the power gate get paid first.
Explained
An AI data center is built for dense racks of AI chips, which need far more power, cooling and networking than a normal data center. Utilities, landlords and chip makers get paid at different steps. The stuck step is getting power to the hall.
Wire
Duke Energy's North Carolina settlement (filed 6 Oct): new data centers of 50 MW or more fund their own substation upfront and pay 75% of demand charges, used or not. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft signed. The commission rules by mid-November.
Wire
GlobalFoundries will make silicon interposers for TSMC's CoWoS AI chip packages in New York under a $2B, five-year deal. Volume only ramps in 1H 2028. The stuck step is the Malta build.
Explained
AI tokens are the chunks of text, image or sound an AI model reads and writes. Clouds bill by the million. Google’s model APIs now handle about 22 billion a minute. The stuck step is capacity to serve them.
Singapore
Singapore passed its Digital Infrastructure Bill on 7 Oct 2026. Every data centre of 3 MW or more now needs a licence, and only 200 MW of new halls were handed out in August. Owners of full halls get paid first. Power and the licence set the pace.
Analysis
Applied Digital has about $36 billion of leases signed and 250 MW live. Its chief says crews, not power, set the pace. What does a ~$7.1 billion price need from the build clock, and who gets paid while halls rise?
Wire
Nebius switched its spare GPU hours from a fixed price to live spot pricing on 8 October. An H100 hour now floats between $0.79 and $4.49. Nebius gets paid more when clusters are full. The stuck step is the idle hour, and only the console shows it.
China
China’s markets reopened on 8 Oct and sold SMIC first. The fight is the foundry’s Q3 gross-margin guide of 26–28%: the first hard price tag on Huawei’s wafer-hungry LogicFolding design. SMIC gets paid on wafer invoices. DUV capacity and qualification still set the pace.
