I was once asked, whats the point of reading history books when investing is all about the future?
Freedom's Forge was a great book on how the US marshalled its resources to supply materiel (as it is called?) for Europe, USSR and for itself to be a great force to beat the Axis powers.
And 2025 reminds me of that.
The world is not at war right now, but the AI wave has the US pitted against another great economy which is a lot more 'closed'. And the US cant explicitly fund the massive buildout, whereas China and its top-heavy machinery can.
For example, China can marshall resources to build out a $200 B network of computing and data centers / AI factories. But the US has to rely on free market forces?
So, the current wave of 'circular deals' where OpenAI gets funding from NVIDIA and Msft, and now Anthropic has a big deal, etc. all point to an unsaid commandment from the US Govt.
That 'we have to win this'. Reminds me of the Space Race and the Nuclear race; if we win this AI race, we get to be the dominant economy, and dominant geopolitical force.
If it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck...
I guess thats what I am alluding to; that these large tech companies have effectively zaibatsu-ised and interlinked to make sure that nobody goes bankrupt, and that innovation can happen.
This might be one of the greatest leaps of innovation that the world has seen.
