5 articles
AI investment is large enough to rewrite the Fed's reaction function through the neutral rate and inflation classification, but the funds rate barely touches AI capex. The real transmission runs through spreads and term premia.
AI infrastructure spending is absorbing critical memory, capacitor, and networking components. With capacity constrained and suppliers prioritizing higher-margin contracts, automotive, industrial, and consumer electronics manufacturers face allocation shortages, rising costs, and production risk.
China has not repaired its growth model; it has redistributed the losses. Property damage and weak consumption are being absorbed by banks, local governments, state capital, public investors, and export-credit vehicles, while external demand remains the only load-bearing growth channel. The key risk is what happens if that export valve narrows.
A 30-day Taiwan Strait closure is not a theoretical exercise — it is a supply chain stress test. The AI chips are the most resilient in the short run. The boring chips break first. The actual gating constraint may be energy, not fabrication.
The semiconductor supply chain is not a policy debate — it is a physical constraint. Advanced packaging, equipment tooling, and rare earth processing cannot be duplicated instantaneously. The irreversible timeline for strategic decoupling is approximately 2028-2032.