WTF — you don’t get ahead in compute by only chasing more compute per square millimeter of CPU die. That’s the narrow view. The real progress happens when compute improves holistically:
- smaller CO₂ footprint per unit of compute
- decentralized capacity
- resilient and adaptable supply chains
- more variety in compute types and use cases
Two Chip Makers, Equal Resources — Different Outcomes
Let’s call them A and B.
Chip Maker A
- Spends 50% more money this year trying to squeeze out 10% more performance.
- They’re stuck in the physics and engineering limits of the compute curve — diminishing returns.
- Every extra percent of performance costs exponentially more R&D, more specialized equipment, more highly-purified materials.
- A’s bet only pays off if the market still believes performance alone decides who wins.
Chip Maker B
- Same resources as A, but spends that +50% on:
- supply chain stability
- cost efficiency
- yield improvement
- recycling and circular materials
- faster manufacturing cycles
- reducing energy and water per chip
- cross‑trained workforce
- diversified fabs and suppliers
- They still invest in performance, but mainly within a stable predictable budget.
- Their gains compound: cheaper products, more reliable production, less downtime, faster delivery, and fewer geopolitical risks.
- B makes 50–75% efficiency improvements across the entire lifecycle of producing compute.
Result: B makes way more money.
Because being less wasteful is not an “altruistic” move — it’s an economic one.
Why This Matters
Chipmaking is insanely resource‑intensive. It runs on:
- ultrapure water
- rare gases
- extreme precision manufacturing
- global supply chains sensitive to delays
And despite that, semiconductor fabs recycle ~95% of their water. Few industries come close.
So when you see:
- data centers sucking communities dry,
- factories wrecking local environments, or
- power grids collapsing under poorly‑designed loads…
That’s not “the cost of technology.” That’s wastefulness disguised as necessity.
Those players are burning resources because:
- they didn’t design for efficiency,
- they avoid accountability, and
- they spend money on propaganda to convince the public that waste is unavoidable.
It’s cheating. It’s laziness. And it’s expensive.
The Audience Needs to Understand the Psychology
The industry started copying Apple’s marketing garbage:
- abstract graphs with no units,
- arbitrary performance claims,
- no transparent metrics,
- no real-world costs.
Once that happened, numbers stopped mattering.
Propaganda replaced engineering.
This is how companies hide:
- poor supply chains,
- fragile manufacturing processes,
- unstable strategic positioning,
- overreliance on hype cycles.
But the truth is simple:
- Supply chain strength wins.
- Strategic position wins.
- Market relationships win.
- Grounded performance wins — not marketing charts.
If technology is not supported by logistics, manufacturing, efficient energy use, and resilient operations, it collapses the moment conditions change.
Core Message
Chasing raw performance is a diminishing‑returns gamble.
Building efficient, resilient, low‑waste compute is how companies win the long game.
Anyone telling you waste is necessary is just asking you to subsidize their inefficiency.
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