545: Nvidia, TSMC 2nm, EVs & Hybrids, Semiconductor Avengers, Nintendo Switch 2, Saudi Oil, Hail & Tornadoes, Hydrocarbons from Sunlight, and The Brutalist

"you want to rather than have to"

A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

-Hunter S. Thompson

🦉🎌🏯📲 I wrote about Duolingo and watching the TV show Shōgun in Edition #542.

Well, I decided to combine both!

I did a few days of Spanish (🇪🇸), but I wasn’t sure how much I was *learning* and how much I was *remembering* from my years of Spanish in high school (I was a terrible student and hated languages in school).

To see if I was actually learning, I switched to Japanese (🇯🇵), which might as well have been Klingon to me 👽

Over the past week, I’ve learned more about foreign languages than I did in three years of multiple-times-a-week Spanish classes in high school. It makes a huge difference when you do something because you want to rather than have to.

Framing also changes everything:

If I think of it as *learning a language that I’ll have to use*, it becomes homework and overwhelming. I imagine myself standing in front of a native speaker in a distant place, my brain going blank and forgetting everything I’ve learned. It feels like trying to swallow an elephant whole — it’s too much, I’ll never get anywhere. 🐘

But if I think of it as just a pattern-matching game that I do purely for fun with no pressure to ever use it — any utility is purely a bonus — it becomes super fun! One bite at a time. 🍽️

You grow by stretching, so I decided to add Chinese (🇨🇳) and German (🇩🇪) alongside Japanese (🇯🇵) and Spanish (🇪🇸). I knew nothing about them except for my very basic Spanish. (Update: After writing this, I also started Italian (🇮🇹), because why not? — words from ‘The Sopranos’ are starting to pop up, like ragazza)

During the weekend, instead of watching a movie, I went into hyperfocus mode and did hundreds of Duolingo lessons, bouncing between languages whenever I felt like it. I was initially worried that learning multiple languages simultaneously would be confusing, but counterintuitively, that hasn't been the case — it's actually more engaging, like reading multiple books in parallel, switching whenever I get tired of one. YMMV

Don’t get me wrong — I’m still a total noob, just a few days into this, and I know I’ll slow down once the honeymoon passes — but even if I never get fluent, going from ZERO TO ONE feels really good. My perspective on these languages has completely changed.

It's like hearing about an exotic dish you've never tasted.

Just trying it once completely changes your understanding, even if you don’t know the recipe or how to cook it properly yet (not the best metaphor, but hopefully that gives you an idea).

I encourage you to try something new — this or something else — even something that you think isn’t for you. Maybe you’re wrong, maybe that exotic dish tastes better than you think. 🍱🍣

🚨 🗣️🗣️🎙️📊🗓️ In case you missed it, make sure to check out my FIFTH annual interview with David Kim aka Scuttleblurb (this year in podcast format):

• 🎧 Interview with David Kim a.k.a. Scuttleblurb (2025) 📈📉📊💰💸

🏖️📚📖 I’m going on vacation somewhere warm with my family at the end of the week, and I’m trying to decide which books to bring.

At the top of my list are ‘The MANIAC’ by Chilean author Benjamín Labatut, “a fictionalized biography of polymath John von Neumann”, and “Yeager”, Chuck Yeager’s memoirs.

I’m open to suggestions. What do you recommend?

💚 🥃 🙏☺️ If you’re a free sub, I hope you’ll decide to become a paid supporter in 2025:

---

🏦 💰 Business & Investing 💳 💴

🎢😬😅😱 Think you would have held Nvidia stock since IPO?

Check this out 👆

The stock dropped 80-90% *multiple times* and these drawdowns lasted for years.

Remember, if a stock is down 90%, you need it to back up 900% just to break even.

Yet despite these brutal decimations, Nvidia stock has compounded at 37.38% annually over the past 26 years 🤯

🔌🚘🔋 EV + Hybrids were 20% of U.S. Vehicle Sales in 2024

In any industry, sentiment is mostly governed by expectations and the second derivative.

During the pandemic, sales of EVs and hybrids shot up just as supply was constrained, creating waiting lists. Every carmaker looked at Tesla’s market cap and decided to make investments in battery factories and new EV models, etc.

Observers extrapolated that into the future, but like most other pandemic forecasts, that turned out to be wrong.

In recent times, the diff between those forecasts and reality has made a lot of people feel like EVs and hybrids were just a fad and are doing terribly.

The reality is somewhere in the middle.

If you zoom out and smooth out the curve (ie. rolling average), EVs and hybrids went from low-single digits to 20% of sales in the US in the past decade. That’s pretty good for a big-ticket item with a fairly long replacement cycle (this isn’t smartphones — though even smartphone cycles have elongated over time).

Auto data firm Motor Intelligence reports more than 3.2 million “electrified” vehicles were sold last year, or 1.9 million hybrid vehicles, including plug-in models, and 1.3 million all-electric models.

Traditional vehicles with gas or diesel internal combustion engines still made up the majority of sales, but declined to 79.8%, falling under 80% for the first time in modern automotive history, according to the data.

While the U.S. BEV/HEV/PHEV market isn’t as vibrant as China’s where there’s been a Cambrian explosion of models and manufacturers, there are still many models fighting it out:

The EV market in the U.S. is highly competitive: Of the 68 mainstream EV models tracked by Cox’s Kelley Blue Book, 24 models posted year-over-year sales increases; 17 models were all new to the market; and 27 decreased in volume.

Personally, I drive an EV6 AWD and *love* it.

🦅🇺🇸🤖✋🛑🇨🇳 The Semiconductors Avengers Break Down the New AI Chip Export Controls ⛓️‍💥🔒🔑

Fun podcast from friend-of-the-show Jordan Schneider at Chinatalk with an all-star ensemble cast:

Lennart Heim from RAND, Jimmy Goodrich consultant for RAND and fellow at CSIS and UCSD, Chip War author Chris Miller, and Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis.

• 🎧📄 EMERGENCY EDITION: AI Diffusion Export Controls

Here’s a highlight:

Jordan: What was the state of play beforehand, and why was the American national security establishment uncomfortable with AI data centers being diffused in the pattern they would have been had these rules not come out?

Dylan Patel: China was still able to access GPUs, whether through renting GPUs from various cloud companies — ByteDance is a top customer at Oracle, Google, and several other clouds — or through data centers being built outside of countries where the US has significant control. This includes many Middle Eastern countries and countries like Brazil, but notably Malaysia.

Malaysia has been adding around three gigawatts of capacity just over the last few years. Three gigawatts of capacity is a humongous amount — Meta’s capacity at the beginning of 2024 globally for data centers was roughly three gigawatts. Malaysia as a single country is adding an entire Meta footprint in just a few years.

While some of that is Microsoft and other companies like Oracle, which were probably for ByteDance and other clients, a lot of it was ByteDance directly and many other Chinese companies. It represents a significant red flag.

How are these new export controls likely to impact various companies in the AI supply chain:

Chris Miller: Dylan, what do you think about the financial implications for the companies? One of the debates has been whether this is impactful to companies or if they will sell the same number of GPUs, just put them in different countries. Dylan might have a view on that.

Dylan Patel: This regulation definitely impacts the financials of many companies in the space, primarily NVIDIA. You can argue the GPUs will just get rerouted, but that’s not always the case. A significant number of GPUs would not have data center capacity in the West — there is a data center shortage. This explains why people are converting anything they can into a data center. That opportunity is now gone. You can’t reshore everything. China was increasing demand for GPUs and affecting the elasticity of demand required for supply creation and sales to them. NVIDIA is impacted — it isn’t just wholesale rerouted because of data center capacity and potential demand issues. On the flip side, companies that can get a universally verified list will benefit massively.

Jimmy Goodrich: Companies will find a way to get these licenses for the real demand out there for huge AI data centers, particularly the universal VUs and large hyperscalers. They have the resources, huge teams, lawyers — they’re all FedRAMP certified, as the rules require. It will be much easier for them.

👋

🐜 🏗️💰💰💰 Taiwan Lifts Overseas Limits on TSMC's 2nm Technology 🇹🇼👀🇺🇸

This opens the door for more (much moaaar!) semiconductor capex in the US, which is sorely needed:

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.

While this doesn’t mean that they’ll immediately push $30bn of chips across the table to build a 2nm fab in the US, they now have the option.

TSMC would “cautiously” evaluate the possibility of investing in building a 2-nanometer fab in the US, which would cost US$28 billion to US$30 billion, Kuo said, adding that TSMC would not yield under pressure from the incoming US government, or rush to build such an advanced chip manufacturing fab in the US.

TSMC has said its second fab in Arizona would produce chips using 2-nanometer and 3-nanometer technology in 2028, after the first fab begins production of 4-nanometer technology in the first half of this year.

The third fab would produce chips using 2-nanometer or more advanced processes, with production beginning by the end of the decade. The investment in Arizona would surpass US$65 billion, it said.

I’m curious how this could impact Taiwan’s “silicon shield”, though of course, most of the fabs are still in Taiwan and whatever happens will take years.

🇸🇦🧊 US Imports of Saudi Oil Hit 40-Year Low (melting, melting…) 🛢️🛢️🛢️📉

Thanks to the shale revolution and the rise of the Canadian oil industry, US imports of Saudi crude plunged to their lowest in almost 40 years in 2024 […]

The flows are unlikely to recover anytime soon — if ever.

The rhetorical aspiration of generations of US politicians, from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, is within reach: freedom from Saudi oil.

Today, only 4 US refineries get their crude from Saudia Arabia:

The collapse in Saudi-US oil flows will deepen further in 2025 as one of the five refineries that has been regularly importing the barrels closes, according to custom documents. Lyondellbasell NV is shuttering its Houston plant this quarter, leaving only four consistent clients for the kingdom’s oil in America.

The remaining plants are the Motiva refinery near Houston, owned by the Saudis themselves via their state-owned oil company; a refinery run by Chevron Corp. near Los Angeles, and two plants owned by PBF Energy Inc. in New Jersey and Delaware. Motiva alone accounts for 40% of the Saudi crude the US imported last year.

This is a big change!

Over the last two years or so, the three largest refining US companies — Marathon Petroleum Corp., Valero Energy Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. — have all stopped importing Saudi crude, according to customs data. Exxon last bought Saudi crude in November 2023, according to government trade records reviewed by Bloomberg Opinion. Because Saudi Arabia sells its barrels under long-term contracts, often stretching five to seven years or longer, the stoppage suggests those companies didn’t renew their long-term contracts, ending decades-long relationships.

Source.

---

🧪🔬 Science & Technology 🧬 🔭

☁️🧊 Global Hail & Tornado Probabilities 🌪️

Above is hail and below are tornadoes:

h/t Brian Potter (he deleted his tweet, I think he didn’t like how he worded it, but the maps are cool)

☀️→🛢️ Making Hydrocarbons from Sunlight + Atmospheric Carbon

Cool feature piece on Terraform, with the founder Casey Handmer walking us through their prototypes and sharing their ambitious vision.

(Quick disclosure: I've talked to Casey once and we've emailed a bit — while I don't know him well, I can tell you he's scary sharp!)

🎮 Nintendo Switch 2 Officially Unveiled 🍄

Nintendo played it smart this time!

Rather than gamble everything on a completely new console format with new interaction methods and unique features, potentially risking another multi-year bad cycle with a dud…

They looked at the Switch — which sold a monster 146.04 million units! — and decided to iterate on it and simply build a better version. It originally came out in 2017, so the hardware is very out-of-date, even with the small refresh with the bigger screen a few years ago.

Frankly, if they can deliver good games on their main franchises (Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, etc), this thing is likely to also be a monster. I know my kids will want one.

No specific release date yet. I asked AI to make its best guess as to when it would come out:

Predicted Release Date: September 20, 2025

Confidence Level: 75%

Here's my reasoning:

1. Historical Pattern Analysis (30% weight)

• Nintendo typically releases major consoles in Q3/Q4

• The original Switch launched March 3, 2017, but this was unusual

• Most successful Nintendo consoles (N64, GameCube, Wii) launched in September-November window

2. Supply Chain Evidence (25% weight)

• Bloomberg reports Nintendo has prepared supply chain for 20 million units in first year

• Manufacturing ramp-up appears to be scheduled for mid-2025

• Supply chain preparations suggest a Q3 launch to hit holiday season

3. Market Timing Factors (25% weight)

• September release gives 3 months of sales before holiday season

• Allows time to build inventory for Black Friday/Christmas

• Avoids competing directly with back-to-school spending

4. Strategic Considerations (20% weight)

• April 2nd Nintendo Direct suggests 5-6 months of marketing build-up

• September launch allows for summer pre-order campaign

• Positions well against competition from PC handhelds

Why Not Other Dates:

• Earlier (July/August): Too soon after April reveal, risks supply constraints

• October/November: Too close to holiday rush, risks inventory shortages

• December: Too late to capitalize on full holiday season

• 2026: Too late given current supply chain preparations

Confidence Level Breakdown:

• 75% confidence in September 2025

• 15% chance of October 2025

• 10% chance of other dates

Time will tell if this is correct ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

🎨 🎭 The Arts & History 👩‍🎨 🎥

🎞️🗣️🇭🇺 ‘The 'Brutalist' AI Controversy: Much Ado About Hungarian Pronunciation… 🤔 🙄 🥱

We knew this was coming:

Controversy has engulfed Brady Corbet‘s three-time Golden Globe winner “The Brutalist” since a January 11 interview the film‘s editor Dávid Jancsó gave video tech site RedShark News in which he said that he used AI-driven tech to smooth the Hungarian dialogue of actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.

Jancsó, a native Hungarian speaker himself, said that he used the AI-powered Ukrainian voice synthesizer software Respeecher to mix his own voice into the dialogue articulated by Brody and Jones so that their pronunciations would be perfect.

“Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” Jancsó said. “We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we’d still be in post.” (Source)

The backlash was predictable — as with anything that has the letters “A.I.” when it comes to Tinseltown — but this is a particularly dumb controversy.

This isn't about AI replacing actors or special effects artists. It's about making Hungarian dialogue more authentic by correcting pronunciation errors from non-native speakers. The same corrections could have been done manually — AI just made it faster and better.

This is strange to me. Nearly everything in films is artificial or enhanced in some way.

Actors pretend to be other people, sets are often not real places, costumes are often not authentic, props are not the real things, and special effects show us things that didn’t happen. Even cameras and lenses will greatly change how a scene looks (you ever notice how different a the same people and places looks when shown from a different angle and shot with a regular camera & lens in a “making of” video?).

Digital tools have been used forever to do color correction, replace skies, add virtual matte paintings, delete wires and telephone poles, etc.

Almost everything on screen is a mix of performance, craftsmanship, and technology.

Yet somehow, fixing foreign-language dialogue mistakes is a bridge too far for some people.

Makes no sense to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In fact, this technology could encourage more multilingual productions. I like how Shōgun has lots of Japanese, how Counterpart has some German, how Inglorious Basterds has great multilanguage scenes, etc.

If actors can feel confident about their pronunciation in other languages, we might see more authentic multilingual storytelling — and that's something worth celebrating, not denouncing!

🕰️ The Path to World War II: Czechoslovakia + The Nazi/Soviet Pact + Poland Invasion 🇩🇪🪦🪦🇵🇱🇨🇿

The Rest is History is a popular podcast, so there’s a good chance you’ve heard it.

But if you haven’t — or have, but haven’t listened to these episodes — I’d like to recommend the recent cycle of 5 episodes about Hitler’s road to war in the period that led to WWII.

It’s episodes 528 to 532. Here’s the first one:

• 🎧 528. The Nazis’ Road to War: Hitler Prepares to Strike (Part 1)

Hitler is preparing the ground for the invasion and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia – what he sees as a crucial step towards the creation of a new German dominion in central and eastern Europe. In so doing, he is setting Europe upon the road to an increasingly imminent Second World War. With Nazism driven above all by the shattering experience of the First World War, a hunger for war burns at the very centre of the Nazi’s ambitions. For Hitler, it is personal – the German economy is in meltdown and with it, his frayed mental and physical state. Was it possible, then, that at this crucial juncture in 1938, the outcome of war could be prevented? Certainly, Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was determined to make it so…