Chokepoint Anatomy

Gringras, David

Corrected Mar 30, 2026

Supply chain concentration by layer. Measured market-share HHI (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) where a tier-1/2 source publishes shares — HBM, foundry, EUV; cloud as a top-3 lower bound — and an explicit sourced-unavailable state where none does, plus single-source dependency identification. Relationships drawn from the full supply chain graph. Hover any node to trace downstream dependencies.

Where one company or one country controls an entire step of AI chip production — from the machines that pattern the silicon to the packaging that assembles the final chip. Each hourglass node shows a concentration point; hover to see what depends on it and trace its downstream dependencies.

Show all 8 supply chain layers as a table (alternative to the interactive SVG hourglass)

Eight layers of the AI compute supply chain hourglass — from raw materials to AI labs. Each row enumerates the editorial chokepoint-criticality level (assessed supply-chain importance, tier 4 — not an HHI band), the measured concentration state (HHI recomputed in code from published market shares: Counterpoint Q3 2025 for HBM; TrendForce FY2025 named top-6 for foundry, a lower bound; Synergy Q4 2025 top-3 for cloud, a lower bound; ASML 2025 Annual Report for EUV, tier 1 — with sourced-unavailable rendered where no tier-1/2 share publication exists and no HHI for AI labs, which consume rather than supply compute), the citable basis carrying metric, source, vintage, and authority tier, and the top-3 nodes in editorial importance order. Editorial weights are never squared into any figure.
Layer	Criticality (editorial) — Editorial chokepoint-criticality assessment (moderate / high / extreme) — assessed supply-chain importance, authority tier 4. NOT an HHI band; the measured concentration state is in the next column.	Measured concentration — Herfindahl–Hirschman Index recomputed in code from published market shares (range 0–10,000). "≥" marks lower bounds; "sourced-unavailable" means no tier-1/2 share publication exists; AI labs carry no HHI because they consume rather than supply compute. Never computed from editorial weights.	Basis (metric · source · vintage · tier)	Top nodes (editorial importance order) — Ordered by block-sizing weight — the measured share where the layer’s full charted set is published (HBM, Fabrication), otherwise editorial supply-chain-importance weight. Ordering only; weights are never rendered as market-share percentages.
AI Labs · Frontier compute consumers	moderate	NO HHI — consumer layer	No HHI: AI labs are frontier compute consumers, not suppliers in a defined product market. Context stats (hard scope labels — NOT market shares in the HHI sense): US-enterprise LLM API spend Anthropic 40 / OpenAI 27 / Google 21 (Menlo Ventures survey n=495, Nov 2025, tier 3); OpenAI ~10–15% of world operational AI compute and top-five labs combined <50% at end-2025 (Epoch AI estimate, tier 2).	OpenAI · US; Google DeepMind · GB; Anthropic · US
Cloud & Infrastructure · Compute deployment	moderate	HHI ≥ 1,421 — top-3 lower bound	LOWER BOUND (top-3 only): 28² + 21² + 14² = 1,421 from Synergy Research Group Q4 2025 worldwide cloud infrastructure revenue shares (tier 2). The remaining ~37% (Oracle, CoreWeave, Alibaba, long tail) is unattributed — the true HHI is strictly higher.	Amazon Web Services · US; Microsoft Azure · US; Google Cloud · US
Chip Design · GPU & accelerator designers	high	HHI — sourced-unavailable (tier-1/2)	No HHI at tier-1/2. Share band: NVIDIA ~80–85% of merchant AI accelerators (tier-3 analyst band, 2025). Market-definition note: including captive ASICs (TPU, Trainium) moves NVIDIA toward ~75%; excluding ASICs entirely moves it above 90%. The band-squaring arithmetic appears in methodology text only, with caveats; the OECD "over 80%" line is a disclosed tier-3 citation chain (Farooque via OECD), not an OECD measurement.	NVIDIA Corporation · US; Advanced Micro Devices · US; Broadcom Inc · US
Advanced Packaging · CoWoS, InFO, chiplet integration	high	HHI — sourced-unavailable	No tier-1/2 share publication for advanced packaging (CoWoS) — HHI sourced-unavailable. Capacity context (TrendForce, tier 2): ~75K wafers/month end-2025 → ~130K projected end-2026; TSMC dominant with ASE (SPIL) and Amkor as overflow. Capacity is not a market share.	TSMC (CoWoS) · TW; ASE Technology · TW; Amkor Technology · US
HBM Memory · AI accelerator memory	high	HHI 4,174 — measured	Measured: 57² + 22² + 21² = 4,174 from Counterpoint Research Q3 2025 HBM revenue shares (SK Hynix / Samsung / Micron — all suppliers named; tier 2, via Semiecosystem). Samsung recovered 15% → 22% Q2→Q3 2025 on HBM3E qualification; refresh on Q4 publication.	SK Hynix · KR; Samsung · KR; Micron Technology · US
Fabrication · Semiconductor foundries	extreme	HHI 5,007 — named-share lower bound	Named-share lower bound: 69.9² + 7.2² + 5.32² + 4.35² + 3.87² + 2.6² ≈ 5,007, recomputed in code from TrendForce FY2025 foundry revenue shares (tier 2, via Taipei Times 2026-03-14). Advanced node: Taiwan ~92% of leading-edge pure-play foundry manufacturing (CSET/VerWey 2021, COUNTRY-level incl. UMC + PSMC); no company-level advanced-node HHI exists at tier-1/2.	TSMC · TW; Samsung Foundry · KR; SMIC · CN
Equipment · Lithography, deposition, etch	extreme	HHI 10,000 — EUV sub-layer only	EUV sub-layer (tier 1): ASML 100% of EUV lithography systems → HHI 10,000 — the strongest figure in this dataset. Source: ASML 2025 Annual Report, financial-performance section + Q4-2025 investor presentation (Form 6-K, Jan 28, 2026) (48 EUV systems recognized 2025, 4 EXE + 44 NXE; EUV system sales +39% to €11.6B). Broader wafer-fab equipment market: sourced-unavailable — no HHI published. The prior blended equipment figure is retired.	ASML Holding · NL; Applied Materials · US; Lam Research · US
Materials & Chemicals · Wafers, photoresists, specialty gases	high	HHI — sourced-unavailable	Sourced-unavailable, split layer: silicon-wafer per-supplier shares have no public locus (Omdia subscription-gated; ledger 2026-06-09) — a wafer HHI does not publish; photoresist/specialty-chemical shares have no tier-1/2 publication. Country-level context: Japan ~56% of global silicon wafers (CSET TechInsights 2024, tier 2).	Shin-Etsu Chemical · JP; SUMCO Corporation · JP; JSR Corporation · JP

Cascade SimulationChokepoint Analysis

What happens when these chokepoints fail

Supply ChainInfrastructure

The full graph behind these concentration metrics

Stress IndexChokepoint Analysis

Real-time concentration sub-index

Early Warning FeedChokepoint Analysis

Live ownership-change activity in these layers

Neocloud Landscape

Where the NVIDIA single-source concentration meets GPU cloud demand

Coordination GapsGovernance

Allied jurisdictional reach over each chokepoint tier

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