A public research surface · updated continuously
The AI buildout will be won by whoever owns the chokepoints.
HBM stacks, CoWoS packaging, EUV optics, gigawatts of power, optical interconnect, liquid cooling. Compute Bottlenecks maps the physical supply chain behind every GPU cluster — and the listed companies that own each choke. Own the strait, not the tanker.
60 names tracked · 10 chokepoints · free, no login
The chokepoints
I
HBM & memory bandwidth
Every accelerator is bandwidth-starved; high-bandwidth memory comes from three companies and is sold out years ahead.
MU · 000660.KS · SSNLF · CAMT · ONTO · FORM · BESIY
II
Advanced packaging & CoWoS
The GPU shortage has repeatedly been a packaging shortage: 2.5D/3D interposer and hybrid-bonding capacity, not wafer starts, sets accelerator output.
TSM · AMKR · ASX · BESIY · ONTO · CAMT
III
Lithography & EUV optics
Leading-edge logic and DRAM both route through one EUV toolmaker — and the single-source optics and laser chain inside it.
ASML · ZEISSSMT · TRUMPF · KLAC · LRCX · AMAT
IV
Leading-edge foundry
Every frontier accelerator is fabbed by one company, mostly in one geography; the alternatives are years behind.
TSM · ASML · INTC · ZEISSSMT · SSNLF · SHECY
V
Power, grid & generation
Datacenter interconnect queues and transformer lead times are measured in years; gigawatts are the new wafer starts.
CEG · VST · TLN · GEV · ETN · PWR · HUBB · CLF
VI
Liquid cooling & thermal
Rack densities past 100 kW make direct-liquid cooling mandatory — and the cold-plate, CDU and rear-door supply chain is thin.
VRT · MOD · NVT · ECL · SBGSY · COOLIT · BOYD
VII
Optical interconnect & networking
Scaling clusters beyond a rack is an optics problem: 800G/1.6T transceivers, co-packaged optics, and the lasers and DSPs inside them.
COHR · LITE · FN · MRVL · CRDO · AAOI · ANET
VIII
Substrates, resist & wafer materials
ABF substrates, advanced photoresists, and 300mm silicon are quiet few-supplier markets sitting under every chip.
IBIDF · AJNMY · SHECY · SUOPY · ENTG · MKKGY · FUJIY · SHWDF · TOKCF
IX
Accelerators & the capex layer
The visible layer: accelerator designers and the hyperscaler capex programs that every other choke feeds.
NVDA · AVGO · AMD · GOOGL · AMZN · META · MSFT
X
Private giants & exposure vehicles
OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI — the AI cap tables without tickers, and the listed and quasi-listed paths into them.
MSFT · AMZN · GOOGL · CRWV · SFTBY · OPENAI · ANTHROPIC · VCX
Latest brief · 2026-09-10
Meta's Muse AI-agent launch lifted the model-and-silicon layer while the data-center power-and-cooling chokepoint took heavy profits, led lower by Vertiv.
The session drew a sharp line inside the AI stack. Meta Platforms (META) rose 6.6% to $653.69 after launching Muse, which it billed as a personal AI agent for consumers tied to Facebook, Instagram and third-party apps, with free and $20/$100 subscription tiers. Mizuho called it the start of a substantial, un-priced product cycle and Morgan Stanley framed it as a claim on the emerging AI-agent market. On this vertical Meta sits on the accelerators-capex chokepoint — the hyperscaler demand that funds the whole buildout — and a credible consumer-agent product is exactly the kind of demand signal that validates the capex. The silicon layer rode with it: Marvell (MRVL) added 4.3% to $235.01 on optical-interconnect, Micron (MU) rose 2.8% to $1,027.77 on HBM memory, and AMD gained 3.0% to $521.10.
The offset was violent and specific. Vertiv (VRT) fell 9.6% to $262.89 on the cooling-thermal chokepoint, a stock-specific unwind of a richly valued AI-infrastructure name after an unusually fast run — profit-taking and valuation scrutiny rather than any adverse print, with the S&P 500 down only about half a percent on the day. The physical layer that keeps accelerators from cooking sold off hardest across the basket.
The rotation was consistent down the infrastructure stack. Modine (MOD) dropped 3.3% to $185.97 on the same cooling-thermal chokepoint, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) fell 3.2% to $107.93 on optical-interconnect, and CoreWeave (CRWV) — last session's leader — gave back 4.9% to $94.94 on the neocloud/private-giants line. The read is a re-pricing within one theme: the market paid up for the model-and-silicon layer where a new demand catalyst landed and took profits from the power-and-cooling names that had run furthest ahead of it.
The catalyst path keeps the physical layer in focus. Ecolab's roughly $4.75 billion CoolIT acquisition — a direct liquid-cooling consolidation — is expected to close in Q3, a read-through for the thermal chokepoint the tape just sold. The OCP Global Summit (Oct 12–15) and SEMICON West (Oct 13–15) bracket the fall infrastructure calendar, where rack-power, cooling and advanced-packaging roadmaps get set. Further out, the OpenAI IPO listing window is targeted for Q4 and Intel's 14A external-customer decision window opens by year-end — the demand-side and foundry signals that determine whether the capex the accelerators-capex chokepoint is pricing actually gets committed.