Insights
Long form work on how industries and institutions are built, and what technology is doing to them.
Full write ups rather than summaries. Each one works through a system from the bottom up, with the numbers shown and the sources named.
2D materials, neuromorphic and quantum
1 PieceABF and BT resin IC package substrates
1 PieceAI and Institutions
5 PiecesFive papers, written to be read in order. They work through what happens to an institution when an AI system is placed next to one of its decisions.
- 01
Beyond the First Order
How to reason about what AI does to institutions after its first measurable effect, with interactive models of analytical depth under capability churn and of the reversibility that adoption consumes.
22 min
4,431 Words
- 02
AI Sovereignty for Middle Powers
A functional test for which AI dependencies a middle power must hold at home, applied to India, with an interactive criticality test, the outage loss curve and the cloud layer's real diversity.
19 min
4,004 Words
- 03
When AI Becomes Infrastructure
Why systemic AI risk comes from correlated failure and lost fallback capacity, with interactive models of failure correlation, supplier concentration and the reliability paradox.
19 min
3,957 Words
- 04
Synthetic Information and Strategic Influence
Why cheap AI-generated content threatens the credibility of true information more than it increases false belief, with interactive models of the default-trust tipping point and the amortisation of fact-checking.
16 min
3,346 Words
- 05
The Algorithmic State
How decision support can pass de facto authority to an AI system without anyone deciding it should, with interactive models of oversight discrimination and skill drift, and a single instrument to measure and prevent it.
19 min
4,030 Words
Advanced packaging: CoWoS, 2.5D/3D chiplets and why packaging became the bottleneck
1 PieceAnalog ICs
1 PieceCo-packaged optics and silicon photonics
1 PieceCompound semiconductors: InP, GaAs, GaN in photonics and 5G RF
1 PieceEUV lithography: 13.5nm light, High-NA and ASML's monopoly
1 PieceElectronic-grade silicon, Czochralski growth and the 300mm wafer oligopoly
1 PieceFlexible OLED and the race to micro-LED: Samsung Display, CMOS image sensors
1 PieceGallium and germanium supply, China export controls and India
1 PieceGallium nitride and gallium oxide
1 PieceGlass-core substrates and 3D interposers
1 PieceHBM3e and the memory wall: DRAM oligopoly, HBM4 transition, Micron Sanand
1 PieceHigh-speed PCB laminates and signal integrity
1 PieceHigh-speed connectors and relays: TE Connectivity, why electromechanical parts survive in EVs
1 PieceMEMS sensors at industrial scale: Bosch Sensortec, automotive and industrial demand
1 PieceMLCCs
1 PieceOSAT and ATMP: back-end assembly economics and India's entry
1 PiecePassive Components
1 PiecePhotoresists, JSR and specialty chemical chokepoints in semiconductors
1 PieceRare earths, mining and chemical refining
1 PieceSMT and THT assembly materials
1 PieceSilicon Carbide
1 PieceThin-film deposition and plasma etch: ALD, PECVD, PVD, epitaxy and the high-aspect-ratio frontier
1 PieceElectrical Steel
3 Pieces- 01
India's CRGO Problem
India imports about 90% of the grain oriented electrical steel that goes into every transformer core. The size of the gap, who makes this steel globally, and what closing it would actually take.
18 min
2,887 Words
- 02
Inside the Electrical Steel Trade
From silicon steel slab to finished transformer core. Who controls each stage, where concentration risk builds up, and how trade flows decide what any one country can build.
15 min
1,710 Words
- 03
The Transformer Bottleneck
The downstream view. Five supply side problems transformer manufacturers hit when sourcing CRGO, and what the grid expansion pipeline does to each of them.
14 min
1,798 Words
Ethanol
3 Pieces- 01
The Real Economics of E20
What E20 actually costs, who pays for it, and whether the crude hedge is worth the premium. India hit a 2030 blending target in 2025, and the bill is spread across places nobody looks.
25 min
4,729 Words
- 02
From Field to Fuel Pump
A litre of ethanol traced through five steps and two money flows, from the sugarcane field and the grain mandi to the pump. Who makes money at each step, and where the chain is thinnest.
18 min
3,972 Words
- 03
The Feedstock Pivot
The programme moved from sugar byproducts to grain, and that one change reset its economics, its water footprint and its relationship to food security all at once.
15 min
3,362 Words