Summary
Asianometry’s Jon Y returns with a firsthand field report from two major industry conferences — Hot Chips 2026 at Stanford and Semicon Taiwan 2026 — offering ground-level observations on the state of AI compute four years into the boom.
The centerpiece is OpenAI’s public debut of its custom AI chip, codenamed Jalapeno, presented at Hot Chips. Jon also profiles a cluster of AI chip startups jostling for position at the show — including Etched, Positron, and Fractile — noting that contrary to his own prediction a year ago, the window for new AI inference chips remains wide open. A parallel theme runs through his Taiwan reporting: a severe and worsening compute shortage that has spot markets completely dried up, Neoclouds scrambling for GPUs across Eastern Europe, and VC firms now spending time tracking down compute allocations rather than just writing checks. He cites a figure of roughly 5 GW of compute concentrated at Anthropic and OpenAI combined, contrasting that abundance with the scarcity facing smaller AI startups.
Perhaps most newsworthy is the emerging industry consensus Jon reports on Google’s position: the broad view among people he spoke with is that Google will not return to the frontier, partly due to talent losses and cultural friction, and partly evidenced by the company selling compute capacity to Anthropic. SpaceX’s xAI, backed by Elon Musk’s acquisition of Cursor’s team, is named as the most likely new entrant to join Anthropic and OpenAI at the frontier. A dense, opinionated dispatch for anyone tracking the competitive and infrastructure layer of the AI industry.
📺 Source: Asianometry · Published September 13, 2026
🏷️ Format: News Analysis
