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Thoughts on the AI buildout

dwarkesh.com · 3,969 words · saved by 1 readers

Sam Altman says he wants to “create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week.” What would it take to make this vision happen? Is it even physically feasible in the first place? What would it mean for different energy sources, upstream CAPEX in everything from fabs to gas turbine factories, and for US vs China competition? These are not simple questions to answer. We wrote this blog post to teach ourselves more about them. We were surprised by some of the things we learned. With a single year of earnings in 2025, Nvidia could cover the last 3 years of TSMC’s ENTIRE CapEx. TSMC has done a total of $150B of CapEx over the last 5 years. This has gone towards many things, including building the entire 5nm and 3nm nodes (launched in 2020 and 2022 respectively) and the advanced packaging that Nvidia now uses to make datacenter chips. With only 20% of TSMC capacity1, Nvidia has generated $100B in earnings. Suppose TSMC nodes depreciate over 5 years - this is en

Blog Thoughts on the AI buildout Fab CapEx overhang, 1 GW a week, China privileged in long timelines, and much else Dwarkesh Patel and Romeo Dean Oct 22, 2025 351 43 31 Share Sam Altman says he wants to “create a factory that can produce a gigawatt of new AI infrastructure every week.” What would it take to make this vision happen? Is it even physically feasible in the first place? What would it mean for different energy sources, upstream CAPEX in everything from fabs to gas turbine factories, and for US vs China competition? These are not simple questions to answer. We wrote this blog post to

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