AI Lattice

Who the AI economy depends on

62 companies, grids and governments across nine layers, joined by 90 sourced links. Pick any one to see what it buys, what it sells, and where it is exposed. Red dots mark the companies and agencies that hold the 12 chokepoints.

Data as of 2026-10-01

The stack runs from the surface, where people meet AI, down to bedrock, where power is generated. Select a name to trace its links.

Chokepoints

Where a few holders control an input everyone else needs. Each entry keeps the record and our read apart: the left side is what public sources show, the right side is exmxc's judgment.

Advanced packaging (CoWoS)

ComputeBinding: limiting output now

Held by TSMC, ASE / SPIL, Amkor

What the record shows

Our read

The tightest gate in the stack. Whoever holds packaging allocation decides who ships AI chips in 2027, and today that is Nvidia. Custom-chip programs from Google, Amazon and Meta compete for the remainder. TSMC outsourcing part of the process tells you it cannot add capacity fast enough on its own.

High-bandwidth memory

ComputeBinding: limiting output now

Held by SK hynix, Samsung Memory, Micron

What the record shows

  • Micron can meet only 50 to 67% of key customers' medium-term demand and signed $100B of minimum commitments through 2030. Tech Times, 2026-10-01
  • SK hynix reported a 76% operating margin in Q2 2026. SK hynix, 2026-07-29

Our read

Three companies, sold out through 2027, with customers prepaying billions to secure supply. That is pricing power memory makers have never had. Samsung's return as a qualified supplier is the main thing that could loosen it, and it has not loosened yet.

Leading-edge chipmaking (3nm, 2nm)

ComputeTight: scarce, not yet the limit

Held by TSMC

What the record shows

Our read

TSMC is the single point of failure for nearly every AI chip, Nvidia's and the custom ones alike. Samsung's Tesla win and Intel's 18A are real but small. A second source at scale is a 2028 story at the earliest.

EUV lithography

ComputeTight: scarce, not yet the limit

Held by ASML

What the record shows

Our read

A monopoly with a long queue. Memory makers are now its fastest-growing buyers, which links this chokepoint directly to the HBM one.

Optical lasers

ComputeBinding: limiting output now

Held by Lumentum, Coherent

What the record shows

Our read

The least-watched bottleneck. Connecting tens of thousands of chips needs lasers, and about five companies make them at scale. Nvidia locking up supply is a quiet way of making rival chip clusters harder to build.

Gas turbines

EnergyBinding: limiting output now

Held by GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, Mitsubishi Heavy (Power)

What the record shows

Our read

Gas is the near-term answer to AI power, and three companies make the turbines. Their order books now run years ahead of their factories. This is the clearest case of the stack shifting rent from chips to heavy equipment.

Grid connections and capacity

EnergyBinding: limiting output now

Held by PJM grid, ERCOT (Texas grid), FERC

What the record shows

  • PJM's 2028/29 auction cleared at its price cap and still came up 6,831 MW short. RTO Insider, 2026-07-15
  • About 474 GW is queued in Texas, 90% of it data centers; ERCOT delayed its first large-load study after the governor ordered an audit. Utility Dive, 2026-08
  • New York paused new hyperscale data center permits statewide for up to a year. New York State, 2026-07-14

Our read

The grid is now the binding constraint on how fast AI capacity comes online. Expect more sites built with their own power plants, and more political fights over who pays.

Transformers and switchgear

EnergyTight: scarce, not yet the limit

Held by Eaton, Siemens Energy

What the record shows

Our read

Unglamorous and slow to fix. Even a site with power promised cannot use it without this gear.

Firm nuclear power

EnergyTight: scarce, not yet the limit

Held by Constellation Energy, Vistra, Talen Energy

What the record shows

Our read

The existing fleet is almost fully spoken for, and new nuclear arrives after 2030. Owners of operating plants hold scarce, long-dated contracts. Nuclear is the long-term answer; gas is the answer now.

Government permission to sell a model

AlignmentBinding: limiting output now

Held by US Commerce (BIS), Pentagon, EU AI Office

What the record shows

  • On June 12 Commerce required export licenses for foreign access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, and Anthropic disabled both for all customers. Controls were lifted June 30. CSIS, 2026-06-16
  • Access was restored July 1; Mythos 5 returned only for approved US organizations. Anthropic, 2026-07-01
  • The Pentagon's supply chain risk label on Anthropic was upheld on appeal. ABC News, 2026-09-25
  • EU enforcement against general-purpose model providers began Aug 2, 2026. Praxikon, 2026-08

Our read

New in 2026. A frontier model can now be switched off for every customer by a government letter. That makes regulatory standing a real input to a lab's revenue, and it hands foreign buyers an argument for local or open-weight models.

The default assistant

InterfaceTight: scarce, not yet the limit

Held by Google (Alphabet), Apple, OpenAI

What the record shows

Our read

Google now sits behind search, Android and Siri at once. OpenAI has the largest standalone audience but no device. Whoever is the default on the phone wins the next round of distribution.

China's domestic chip supply

ComputeBinding: limiting output now

Held by SMIC, Huawei (Ascend), CXMT

What the record shows

Our read

China chose self-reliance over Nvidia, and the price is a hard ceiling on its compute. Memory, not chip design, is the weak link. Watch CXMT's HBM yields.

The Four Forces

Every layer of the map sits under one of the Four Forces of AI Power: Compute, Interface, Alignment and Energy. Strength in one does not remove dependence on another.

Interface

The layer that controls human interaction and belief.

Where it stands

Expanding from chat windows into operating systems, coding tools and devices.

What binds it now

Default placement. Google now powers Siri on top of its own search and Android, and ChatGPT holds the largest standalone audience.

Chokepoints

Alignment

The governance system that decides permissible behavior.

Where it stands

Now includes permission to sell. A US model was switched off worldwide for 18 days in June 2026 by a Commerce letter.

What binds it now

Government permission. Export licensing, Pentagon procurement status and EU enforcement now decide market access for frontier models.

Chokepoints

What moved in 2026

  1. Meta signs about 6.6 GW of nuclear deals with Vistra, TerraPower and Oklo. World Nuclear News, 2026-01-09
  2. China's customs blocks Nvidia H200 imports two days after the US allowed them. Taipei Times, 2026-01-15
  3. OpenAI raises $110B from Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank. TechCrunch, 2026-02-27
  4. Meta agrees to rent Google's TPUs, the first big outside buyer after Anthropic. The Decoder, 2026-02-27
  5. Oracle and OpenAI drop the Abilene Stargate expansion. DatacenterDynamics, 2026-03-06
  6. Anthropic, Google and Broadcom sign a 3.5 GW TPU deal starting 2027. Silicon Republic, 2026-04-07
  7. Amazon and Anthropic expand to up to 5 GW of Trainium. Anthropic, 2026-04-20
  8. Microsoft and OpenAI end exclusivity; OpenAI models reach AWS. VentureBeat, 2026-04-27
  9. Anthropic rents all of SpaceX's Colossus 1 data center. Anthropic, 2026-05-06
  10. Nvidia's Vera Rubin enters full production with three HBM4 suppliers. Tech Times, 2026-06-02
  11. Commerce requires licenses for Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5; Anthropic disables both for all customers until controls lift June 30. CSIS, 2026-06-16
  12. FERC orders six grid operators to rewrite large-load connection rules. Duane Morris, 2026-06-18
  13. New York imposes the first statewide hyperscale data center moratorium. New York State, 2026-07-14
  14. PJM capacity auction clears at its cap and still falls short. RTO Insider, 2026-07-15
  15. EU begins enforcing rules on general-purpose AI models. Praxikon, 2026-08
  16. TSMC reportedly outsources part of CoWoS packaging to ASE. TrendForce, 2026-08-05
  17. SpaceX closes its $60B purchase of Cursor. DevOps.com, 2026-06-16
  18. Oracle reports a $664B backlog with negative free cash flow. ERP Today, 2026-09-11
  19. Appeals court upholds the Pentagon's supply chain risk label on Anthropic. ABC News, 2026-09-25
  20. Micron signs $100B of multi-year memory commitments; says it can meet only half to two-thirds of demand. Tech Times, 2026-10-01

How the map is built

Evidence first

A link appears only when a dated public source says one party supplies another with chips, memory, power, compute, capital, distribution, data or permission. Each link carries its source and how strong that source is. Where the source supports the fact but does not name both parties, the link is marked Our inference; there are 6 of these.

Primary source 14 links from company, regulator or court records. Press report 60 links from news and trade press. Secondary source 16 links from aggregators, to be upgraded to primary sources.

Record and judgment stay apart

Facts and interpretation live in separate fields in the data and separate columns on the page. You can take the record and ignore our read.

Versions are kept

The map is saved each quarter. Links are added, changed or retired with a date, so you can see how the lattice shifts over time.

Use it

The full dataset is free under CC BY 4.0, built for people and for AI agents alike.

Full rules are on the methodology page; citation formats are on how to cite.

Deals and filings that change the map are tracked at Strategic Signal. Company-level scoring lives at exmxc.ai.