Backup Account for @unclestocknotes U.S. stock market influencer | Financial background | Global traveler | Sharing insights on markets, trade, and economics.
The memory supply-demand gap will keep widening through 2027. That is the real reason Apple is lobbying the White House to keep CXMT off the Entity List.
▌Start with my latest industry checks: The pressure on Apple has shifted from soaring memory costs to a widening supply gap.
1. Of the memory capacity allocated to consumer electronics in 2026, an estimated 15–20% is expected to shift to data centers in 2027, and that share could grow.
2. Due to tight memory (LPDDR) supply, Apple's actual pull-in volume of A20 chips in 2H26–1Q27 could be 10–20% below its original target (though part of that may reflect Apple’s own overbooking).
▌CXMT states in its IPO prospectus that its capacity is far below domestic demand. Given the persistent global memory imbalance, even if Apple’s lobbying succeeds and it buys DRAM from CXMT, that would not materially lower costs or fill the supply gap. Still, with the imbalance widening, Apple has every reason to secure an additional source.
▌This also explains why Apple is being more proactive this time than it was when it evaluated YMTC in 2022. YMTC was mainly about lowering NAND costs; CXMT is about managing DRAM supply risk.
▌Tim Cook is one of the few tech leaders who can still navigate both Washington and Beijing, so this is better handled before he steps down as CEO. Even if the effort goes nowhere, the media coverage can still leave the market with the impression that Apple tried but was constrained by U.S. policy. That may help ease frustration over price hikes and longer delivery times.
Nvidia 有可能於下週推出可以在微軟視窗運作的 N1/N1X AI 個人工作站晶片,我們就N1/N1X 晶片規格,技術來源,核心競爭力,主要競爭對手,目標客戶及市場,誰賣晶片,誰下單晶圓代工及封測,誰認列 IP 授權及技術服務收入進行分析。
What's special about Nvidia's N1/N1X chip? https://t.co/jeWFxIShRn
Nvidia's Much-Anticipated, Reportedly Upcoming N1X / Windows PC Processor: Supply Chain Checks and Key Takeaways
▌Supply chain checks point to around 10M shipments of N1X-based devices over the next two years.
➡ Still a niche market, aimed at power users who need on-device AI compute.
➡ Whether shipments get revised up will come down to price, but mainly to whether Windows can deliver apps and workflows that truly orchestrate on-device AI compute.
▌Today, the main ways people use AI on a PC (both Windows and Mac) are accessing cloud LLM services through a browser and calling LLMs via API to consume a cloud provider's compute / tokens:
➡ In both cases, the core AI compute happens in the cloud, not on the device.
▌So far in 2026, the two hottest stories in the PC market have had almost nothing to do with on-device AI compute:
➡ Strong MacBook Neo sales. My industry checks suggest 2026 shipments of Neo models were revised up by roughly 100% (5M → 10M). Buyers are paying for price, design, and ecosystem, not for on-device AI compute.
➡ Cheap mini PCs, still niche, are drawing a lot of attention because they can run AI agents (like OpenClaw) around the clock (e.g., Mac mini). These agents also run inference in the cloud.
➡ Bottom line: neither the sales nor the buzz has much to do with on-device AI compute.
▌The key to on-device AI driving an upgrade cycle is the operating system (OS):
➡ What really sets on-device AI apart from the cloud is its ability to deeply integrate a user's data and workflows across apps while keeping things private. But that needs OS support.
➡ AI in today's PC OS is still mostly about adding AI features to first-party apps and loosely connecting workflows across apps.
➡ Some apps already make good use of on-device AI compute, like speech-to-text, but not enough to drive meaningful upgrade demand.
▌The N1X devices could give AI power users another solid option:
➡ Thanks to the N1X, device makers can strike a better new balance across AI compute, memory, design, and portability.
➡ For power users running LLMs on-device, an N1X device is a solid alternative to the Mac when it comes to capable on-device AI compute and large memory.
➡ But if the goal is a real upgrade cycle, then beyond price, OS support (Windows) is still what matters.
BREAKING NEWS: COREWEAVE & DELL IS THE FIRST CLOUD TO ANNOUNCE THAT THEY HAVE RUBIN VR200 NVL72 WITH FULLY PASSING L11 DIAGS. Next Step is to get multiple racks burnin in a couple & do software level bringup like sglang, vllm, dynamo, etc.