References and record
Every source the edition rests on, the publication record, the corrections log and the open record.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1AI compute is physical infrastructure built on a few chips and a few places
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Compute build-out meets local power, water and packaging limits
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
C.144 sources
NR-CIT-1, editor first. A DOI is linked where the source has one; Nexus records carry a UNI once the catalogue allocates it (NS-1).
- 1Pilz, K.F., Sanders, J., Rahman, R. and Heim, L., Trends in AI Supercomputers, arXiv:2504.16026, submitted 22 April 2025 (abstract page: 500 systems from 2019 to 2025; performance doubling about every nine months; cost and power doubling about every year; one March 2025 system with about 200,000 chips, USD 7 billion and 300 MW; about 75% of performance in the United States). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
- 2Sevilla, J., Heim, L., Ho, A., Besiroglu, T., Hobbhahn, M. and Villalobos, P., Compute Trends Across Three Eras of Machine Learning, arXiv:2202.05924, 2022 (abstract page: doubling about every 20 months before 2010 and about every 6 months in the deep learning era). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6
- 3Sevilla, J. and others, Can AI scaling continue through 2030?, Epoch AI, 20 August 2024 (first 100,000 characters read: about 4 times a year; 1 to 5 GW campuses; about 2e29 FLOP feasible by 2030; power binds first). Epoch AI, San Francisco. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 4POST-CLOSE, context only: Epoch AI (ed.), AI models data hub (page updated 3 November 2026; over 3,700 models; no growth rate stated on the page). Epoch AI, San Francisco. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 5Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (ed.), The 2025 AI Index Report, key takeaways page (training compute doubling about every five months; hardware cost down about 30% a year; energy efficiency up about 40% a year; chips detail not given on the page). Stanford University, Stanford. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 2, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 6Luccioni, A.S., Jernite, Y. and Strubell, E., Power Hungry Processing: Watts Driving the Cost of AI Deployment?, ACM FAccT 2024, arXiv:2311.16863 (abstract page: multi-purpose generative models orders of magnitude more costly per 1,000 inferences than task-specific models). ACM, New York. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 6
- 7Patterson, D. and others, Carbon Emissions and Large Neural Network Training, arXiv:2104.10350, April 2021 (abstract page: sparse models under one tenth of the energy; location effect 5 to 10 times; choice of model, datacentre and processor 100 to 1000 times). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2021. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 8Semiconductor Industry Association (ed.), Global Annual Semiconductor Sales Increase 25.6% to $791.7 Billion in 2025 (release; WSTS data; logic USD 301.9 billion; memory USD 223.1 billion; regional growth; about USD 1 trillion projected for 2026). Semiconductor Industry Association, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 9Evertiq (ed.), Semiconductor equipment billings reached $135B in 2025, 9 April 2026, a trade report of a SEMI release (USD 135.06 billion in 2025 against USD 117.14 billion in 2024; regional table); the SEMI page itself returned an access error, so this is a secondary report and weak evidence. Evertiq, Munich. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 10POST-CLOSE, context only: NIST (ed.), CHIPS for America program page (USD 50 billion; USD 39 billion manufacturing incentives; USD 11 billion research; award notices of 8 September, 16 September, 14 October and 22 October 2026). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 11NIST (ed.), CHIPS research and development programmes page (National Semiconductor Technology Center, National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program, Manufacturing USA institute; undated; no programme amounts). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 12European Commission (ed.), European Chips Act policy page (entered into force 21 September 2023; three pillars; more than EUR 33 billion across 19 State aid decisions; second Chips Act proposed June 2026). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
- 13US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (ed.), home page and news items (May 2026 guidance on licences for advanced computing items to Country Group D:5 entities; 7 April 2026 extension of the authorised IC designer timeline to 31 December 2026; Section 232 investigation of semiconductor imports listed). BIS, Washington. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 14IEEE (ed.), International Roadmap for Devices and Systems, programme page (successor to the ITRS; IEEE sponsorship since 2016; 2023 update the latest edition listed). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 4, chapter 6
- 15US Department of Energy (ed.), DOE Releases New Report Evaluating Increase in Electricity Demand from Data Centers, 20 December 2024 (176 TWh in 2023, about 4.4%; 325 to 580 TWh, about 6.7% to 12%, in 2028). US Department of Energy, Washington. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
- 16Shehabi, A. and others, 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, December 2024 (publication page abstract only; no figures on the page; the report PDF was not read). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 2, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 17TSMC (ed.), Annual reports page of investor relations (2025 Annual Report and Form 20-F filed 17 April 2026 listed; the reports themselves were not read). Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Hsinchu. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.
- 18POST-CLOSE, context only: WSTS (ed.), World Semiconductor Trade Statistics home page (73rd forecast conference planned for 16 to 19 November 2026; billings data through August 2026; no forecast values in the text of the page). WSTS, Geneva. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.
- 19Nvidia (ed.), Blackwell architecture product page (208 billion transistors per GPU; custom TSMC 4NP process; performance multiples are vendor claims and weak evidence). Nvidia, Santa Clara. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 20ASML (ed.), Moore’s law explainer page (Moore observation of 1965 and revision of 1975; statement that EUV gives the highest resolution; no High-NA content on the page). ASML, Veldhoven. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 8
- 21The Register (ed.), Japan’s Rapidus lands $1.7B to chase 2nm chip production by 2027, 27 February 2026 (JPY 267.6 billion round; JPY 100 billion from a METI agency; JPY 167.6 billion from 32 companies); trade press, weak evidence. Situation Publishing, London. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 22Focus Taiwan, Central News Agency (ed.), report of 13 March 2026 on the largest foundry reaching almost 70% of the global foundry market in 2025 (headline and lead only; the rest is behind a paywall); press report, weak evidence. Central News Agency, Taipei. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 23AZFamily (ed.), TSMC Arizona expansion could make it Phoenix’s largest water customer, 22 July 2026 (total planned investment USD 265 billion; about 5,300 acre-feet a year for the first fab; 65% reclaimed; goal 90%); local news reporting company figures, weak evidence. Gray Media, Phoenix. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 24UNVERIFIED, not opened: IEA (ed.), Energy and AI, April 2025 (about 415 TWh of global data centre electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of the total; about 945 TWh in 2030 in the base case; range of 700 to 1,700 TWh in 2035), taken from search-result summaries; the IEA pages returned an access error. International Energy Agency, Paris. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 25UNVERIFIED, not opened: USGS (ed.), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, gallium chapter (reported in summaries as about 99% of primary low-purity gallium produced in China in 2025), taken from search-result summaries; the page returned an access error and no figure is used in the findings. US Geological Survey, Reston. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 26UNVERIFIED, not opened: USGS (ed.), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, germanium chapter, the page returned an access error; summaries differ on China shares and no figure is used. US Geological Survey, Reston. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 27UNVERIFIED, not opened: TrendForce (ed.), 2025 foundry ranking (largest foundry sales about USD 122.5 billion and a share of about 69.9%), taken from press coverage in search results. TrendForce, Taipei. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 2, chapter 8
- 28UNVERIFIED, not opened: TSMC (ed.), fourth-quarter 2025 results (about 74% of 2025 wafer revenue from 7 nanometre and smaller nodes against 69% in 2024), taken from press coverage in search results; sources differ on the quarterly share. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Hsinchu. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 2, chapter 8
- 29UNVERIFIED, not opened: Khan, S.M. and Mann, A., AI Chips: What They Are and Why They Matter, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, April 2020; the file fetched returned only a notice that the report was updated, so no content was read. Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Washington. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 30UNVERIFIED, not opened: US Department of Commerce, Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, interim final rule, 90 Federal Register 4544, January 2025, cited from search summaries; the Federal Register page redirected. Federal Register, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 31UNVERIFIED, not opened: law-firm client alerts on the rescission of the AI diffusion rule and related guidance, 12 and 13 May 2025, taken from search-result summaries; a formal notice date was not confirmed. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 2, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 32UNVERIFIED, not opened: JEDEC (ed.), JESD270-4 HBM4 standard, April 2025 (about 2 TB/s per stack; 32 channels; up to 64 GB per stack), taken from search-result summaries; the JEDEC page returned an access error. JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, Arlington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 33UNVERIFIED, not opened: European Union, Regulation (EU) 2023/1781 of 13 September 2023 establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem (Chips Act); the EUR-Lex fetch returned no text, cited from memory. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 34UNVERIFIED, not opened: United States Congress, CHIPS and Science Act, Public Law 117-167, 2022, cited from memory. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 35UNVERIFIED, not opened: Leiserson, C.E. and others, There’s plenty of room at the Top: What will drive computer performance after Moore’s law?, Science 368, eaam9744, 2020, taken from a reposted abstract in search results. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 36UNVERIFIED, not opened: Moore, G.E., Cramming more components onto integrated circuits, Electronics 38(8), 1965, cited from memory. Observation year 1965. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 37UNVERIFIED, not opened: Dennard, R.H. and others, Design of ion-implanted MOSFET’s with very small physical dimensions, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits 9(5), 256 to 268, 1974, cited from memory. Observation year 1974. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 38UNVERIFIED, not opened: Koomey, J.G. and others, Implications of historical trends in the electrical efficiency of computing, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 33(3), 46 to 54, 2011, cited from memory. Observation year 2011. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 39UNVERIFIED, not opened: Masanet, E. and others, Recalibrating global data centre energy-use estimates, Science 367, 984 to 986, 2020, cited from memory. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6
- 40UNVERIFIED, not opened: IEA (ed.), Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026, cited from the XT-02 notes of this series, not read for this edition; no figure is used. International Energy Agency, Paris. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 8
- 41UNVERIFIED, not opened: Government of the Netherlands and Government of Japan, export-control rules on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, 2023, cited from memory; no figure is used. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
- 42UNVERIFIED, not opened: Government of India, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, India Semiconductor Mission, the programme site returned an access error; cited from memory without figures. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 43UNVERIFIED, not opened: METI and press coverage of the April 2026 addition of JPY 631.5 billion to Rapidus support, bringing research and development support to about JPY 2.354 trillion, taken from search-result summaries; totals differ by source. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in chapter 6, chapter 8
- 44United States Congress, CHIPS and Science Act, Public Law 117-167, enacted 9 August 2022 (text of section 102 on Congress.gov, first 100,000 characters read: the funding lines for sections 9902 and 9906 of Public Law 116-283 by fiscal year 2022 to 2026 sum to USD 39 billion for manufacturing incentives and USD 11 billion for research, USD 50 billion in all; the totals are sums of the listed amounts, not stated in the text). Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03. Cited in the summary, chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 6, chapter 8
C.2Publication record
Publication
- Title
- Exponential Technology Report 2026: Advanced Semiconductors and AI Compute, Baseline Edition
- Series
- Reports · Exponential Technology Series XT-06
- Edition
- Baseline Edition 2026 · inaugural annual
- Version
- v1.0.0 · draft for stewardship review
- Publication ID
- NR-XTECH-SEMICONDUCTORS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
- Evidence close
- 30 September 2026
- Publication date
- October 2026
- DOI
- concept and version DOI at deposit
Publisher
- Publisher of record
- The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI), for the Nexus Consortium
- Place
- Toronto
- Editor
- Saeed Valadbaygi, Chief Steward and Managing Editor
- Stewards
- GCRI · technical truth · the Global Risks Forum (GRF) · public meaning · the Global Risks Alliance (GRA) · capital meaning
- Licence
- text CC BY 4.0; data on the terms of each source
- Copyright
- © 2026 GCRI · Nexus Consortium
- Language
- English (en-GB) source edition
- Correspondence
- Registry correction pathway · editorial office
Colophon
- Format
- A4 portrait · screen, print and archival PDF
- Typefaces
- Space Grotesk (display) · Geist (text) · IBM Plex Sans Italic (standfirsts) · IBM Plex Mono (data)
- Design standard
- Reports Foundational Edition, Volume I, Part VII
- Accessibility
- tagged PDF and HTML targets; text alternatives for every figure
- Production
- Reports editorial team, GCRI
Release path for this version
| Step | What happens | When |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | editorial self-check complete at evidence close | October 2026 |
| Steward review | five passes on the exact draft (keys T · M · F · N) | Q4 2026 |
| Approval | publication authority approves the exact digest | before release |
| Deposit | concept and version DOI minted; registry pointer set | at release |
| Succession | the 2027 semiconductor and compute edition reports changes against this baseline | 2027 |
- Current version
- v1.0.0 draft, stewardship review
- Previous edition
- none, first edition of the series
- Next edition
- NR-XTECH-SEMICONDUCTORS-GLOBAL-2027-v1.0.0
- Latest version
- resolve the concept DOI or the registry record
- Correction route
- Registry correction pathway
- Notice types
- erratum · addendum · supersession · withdrawal
C.3Corrections log
0correction notices. No edition has been released yet, so none can be corrected; the log below lists each edition’s current version.
| Edition | Version | Date | State | Change | Notice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XT-06 | NR-XTECH-SEMICONDUCTORS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0 | October 2026 | Draft | Baseline Edition 2026, inaugural annual edition, | None |
Notice types: erratum, addendum, supersession, withdrawal. A correction is a new version with a published notice; the earlier version stays resolvable, and no edition is ever edited in silence.
C.4Open record
This edition’s open record
- Publication ID
- NR-XTECH-SEMICONDUCTORS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-v1.0.0
- Desk identifier and series alias
- NR-XTC-XT-06-2026-BL
- Collection
- None
- DOI
- Concept and version DOI at deposit, on Zenodo with DataCite metadata
- Versions
- Each correction is a new version (isNewVersionOf); the concept DOI resolves to the latest
- Bundle
- RO-Crate 1.2 with CITATION.cff, CodeMeta and PROV-O provenance; a signed manifest
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0 (SPDX CC-BY-4.0) for original material; metadata CC0 1.0
Credit and identity
- ORCID
- Your iD in the deposit and the contribution record; DataCite can then add the work to your ORCID record
- ROR
- Your organisation by its ROR identifier, never by a typed name alone
- CRediT
- Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualisation, Writing, review and editing
- Account
- None needed to contribute; never a password
Find and follow
Search the open indexes for Advanced Semiconductors and AI Compute; software is cited by its SWHID from Software Heritage, and a quantified scenario run is preregistered on OSF before it is run. Annotation is your choice: Hypothesis opens this page in its own viewer.
Mirrors and harvest
The DOI is canonical. At release each signed bundle is also given an IPFS content identifier and a bloxberg anchor as mirrors; both are listed in the record once they exist. Zenodo exposes every record over OAI-PMH, and reviews and endorsements can arrive through COAR Notify where the repository supports it.
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}C.5Where this edition sits among the six pillars
Foundry seals the evidence and Universe tests it; Reports publishes it; Standards takes its corrections and Academy teaches from it.
- F03 Sealed observations and indicator series Foundry Sealed observations and indicator series behind a profile (closeout).
- F04 After-action and scenario findings for Universe After-action and scenario findings for chapters 10 and 13 (after action review).
- F05 National Portfolio movement for chapter Foundry National Portfolio movement for chapter 11 (after action review).
- Applied in editions Standards Nexus Standards: applied in editions.
- XT-06 edition Reports Advanced Semiconductors and AI Compute 2026, published in every format with its sources, citation and corrections.
- F06 Method and correction findings as change Standards Method and correction findings as change proposals (correction).
- F12 Q4 synthesis informs the next-year Universe Q4 synthesis informs the next-year mandate (renewal).
- Taught in the open Academy Risk Academy: taught in the open.
What Foundry and Universe hand to this edition, and what it hands to Standards, Universe and Academy. From the programme spine; XT-06 is a drafted Baseline Edition, so these handoffs run from its first operational quarter.
| Handoff | Between | What crosses, and when |
|---|---|---|
| F03 | Foundry to Reports | Sealed observations and indicator series behind a profile (closeout). |
| F04 | Universe to Reports | After-action and scenario findings for chapters 10 and 13 (after action review). |
| F05 | Foundry to Reports | National Portfolio movement for chapter 11 (after action review). |
| Ring | Nexus Standards to Reports | Nexus Standards: applied in editions. |
| F06 | Reports to Nexus Standards | Method and correction findings as change proposals (correction). |
| F12 | Reports to Universe | Q4 synthesis informs the next-year mandate (renewal). |
| Ring | Reports to Risk Academy | Risk Academy: taught in the open. |