The Memory Wall: How HBM Shortages Will Define the AI Hierarchy in 2027
On 21 January 2026, Micron’s chief business officer told investors the company was “sold out” of high-bandwidth memory for the entire 2026 calendar year, with the bulk of…
Intelligence Briefings
Category: Reports
The Offshore Architecture: Why Tax Havens Can’t Be Removed Without Breaking Global Finance
There is a comfortable story about tax havens in which they are a moral aberration: sun-drenched islands where the rich hide money from honest tax collectors, and where…
The Patent Cliff: $250bn at Stake and the Bidding War Behind the Curtain
On 1 January 2026, Medicare’s negotiated price for Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer’s anticoagulant Eliquis fell to $231 a month, down from a $521 list price, a 56%…
The Reinsurance Backstop: How a Handful of Firms Quietly Underwrite the World
When a hurricane flattens a stretch of the Gulf Coast or an earthquake levels a city block, the homeowner files a claim with a primary insurer whose name…
The Plumbing: How Money-Market Brittleness Returned in 2026
On 31 December 2024, U.S. banks borrowed a record $74.6 billion through the Federal Reserve’s Standing Repo Facility, eclipsing the prior $50.35 billion intraday print from 31 October.…
The Sahel After France: How Russia Bought the Coup Belt with a Mercenary Tariff
On 22 December 2023, the last French military aircraft lifted from Air Base 101 in Niamey, completing a withdrawal that had begun, in formal terms, with Operation Barkhane’s…
The Drone Inversion: How Ukraine’s Unmanned Industry Rewrote the War
Just over a year ago, in these pages, we examined a war that appeared to be decided by donated hardware. Our April 2025 analysis weighed the Gepard against…
The Era of the Trillion-Dollar Startup
On Thursday, May 28, Anthropic announced a Series H funding round that raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion. The figure sits a rounding error…
The Mirage: Why Mexico’s Nearshoring Boom Is Stalling Before It Starts
The site at Santa Catarina, on the northern edge of Monterrey, was prepared in 2023. Trees were cleared. Earthworks were levelled. A perimeter fence was raised. Tesla had…
Brussels Bets on the Sovereign Stack
The European Commission’s Tech Sovereignty Package, set for unveiling on 27 May, marks a quiet but consequential pivot in how Brussels engages with American technology. For most of…