Interconnected

($) Lip-Bu Tan: the Tiger Dad Intel Needs

The most successful tech CEO and VC no one has heard of

A New Father's Reflections on the American Dream

One of my July 4th traditions is to do a crossfit hero workout at my local gym. This year, my gym chose the workout Witten. I finished it in 51 minutes and 41 seconds this morning; it was a slog! Another one of my

Topics: Open Source• AI• Developer•

China's Structural Advantage in Open Source AI

Not just my words, Ion Stoica’s too.

Topics: Oracle• Cloud War•

($) Oracle Cloud: the Largest "Chinese Cloud" in America?

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or Overseas Chinese Infrastructure?

Topics: US-China•

Contours of a US-China Tech Grand Bargain

The first (known) phone call between Trump and Xi since the inauguration finally happened this week. Soon after the call, the new round of negotiation will take place in London on Monday, June 9th. A new wrinkle is added to the negotiation dynamic – Commerce

Topics: Cloud War• AI•

($) Two Charts That Matter in Mary Meeker’s AI Deck

Topics: Semiconductor• Xiaomi•

“Overachievement”: Xiaomi's Decade-Long Chip Development Journey

Today’s post is a translation and transcreation of an article published by Jiemian News, a Chinese language tech outlet, that profiled Xiaomi’s homegrown chip-making backstory. While I rarely do translations, this article was sufficiently interesting and included some fascinating insights and anecdotes

Topics: AI•

($) Is 2025 the Year of the AI RIF?

AI RIF is the best, if not only, form of walking the walk to show what AI can really do

Topics: Cloud War• AI• Middle East•

The Middle East Swings to American AI

With two important, long-term implications

Topics: Quarterly and Annual Letters•

($) Q1 2025: Trust the Process, Trust the Temperament

Topics: VC• AI• Geopolitics•

Benchmark Invests in Manus: VC Math vs Geopolitics Math

An economically rational deal if you are a true early stage VC

Topics: Huawei• AI• Cloud Industry•

($) Huawei's Global AI Ambition: The Core Depends on The Soul

Topics: Nvidia• AI• Supply Chain•

NVIDIA: Made in America (by Taiwan)

NVIDIA made a major announcement in its efforts to onshore advanced chip manufacturing to the US this week, by leading (demanding?) its ecosystem of partners to produce its Blackwell products in Texas and Arizona. This move, combined with recent reports that possible export controls

Topics: Tariffs• Macro•

($) This Time is NOT like Covid

It's worse...

Topics: Cloud War• AI• CoreWeave•

CoreWeave vs Nebius

Training Machine vs In-Production Inference

Topics: AI•

An Ordinary Analogy to Understand Pre-Training, Test-Time Compute, Inference

The AI is just taking an exam, like you and me

Topics: AI• US-China• Mr. Market•

($) Manus vs Gemini vs GPT: the Junior Stock Analyst

Topics: TSMC• Geopolitics• Open Source•

Has American Soft Power Peaked?

Tying together DeepSeek open source week, the Oval Office meltdown, and TSMC’s new investment

Topics: Alibaba• Cloud Industry•

($) Alibaba Cloud: No Longer Ignored

How Should We Think About Asia’s Biggest Cloud Now

Topics: AI• Developer•

Nebius Part 2: Cash, Optionalities, Challenges

In “Nebius Part 1: the Smooth (Developer) Operator”, I shared my point of view on why Nebius is the most compelling pure-play AI neocloud with its smooth developer experience, its history, and the pros and cons of its Yandex and Russian roots. In this

Topics: AI• Developer•

Nebius Part 1: the Smooth (Developer) Operator

Last Friday, Wall Street “discovered” Nebius. It was revealed in Nvidia’s latest 13F filing as one of its newest investees, along with WeRide, a Chinese self-driving company. I put “discovered” in quotes because for those of us paying attention, this “mystery” has been

Topics: Open Source• AI•

($) DeepSeek Diffusion

It’s about open vs closed, not (just) about the US vs China

Topics: Quarterly and Annual Letters•

2024 Annual Letter: Generational Company, Generational Wealth

Welcome to the 2024 annual letter of Interconnected Capital. To new and old readers alike, a friendly reminder: I run a global technology long-only fund focused on investing in the “picks and shovels” of the interconnected global digital AI economy. I draw on my

Topics: AI• Cloud Industry•

($) Stargate is America’s Sovereign AI

Topics: Cloud War• AI•

Was Zuck Right about Chinese AI Models?

Model censorship happens in the cloud