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· Midday Alpha · by Buzzberg Research
AlmaCap argues Anthropic's slowdown is not a demand ceiling, Gavin Baker says hyperscaler growth is the better gauge, @aleabitoreddit relays TSMC's view that demand still exceeds supply, and Chamath says merchants can sell to AI agents without Amazon's take rate.
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Market Radar →Chamath: merchants can sell to AI agents directly and skip Amazon's take rate
Chamath expects merchants to make inventory available via MCP and accept agent payments, and suspects direct FedEx, UPS or USPS shipping can match costs once the Amazon take rate is stripped out.
The future is a merchant product that makes one’s inventory available via MCP / headlessly and accepts agent payments.
He says the moat isn't what it is anymore and that this is why they are blocking.
Source →Gavin Baker: hyperscaler growth rates beat Anthropic ARR as the AI demand gauge
Baker says Anthropic was FCF positive in Q3 and reaccelerating in October on Opus 5.5 per third-party data, with 75% of its compute going to training, and that OpenAI keeps growing at the same pace after taking share from Anthropic in Q3.
TLDR; we will probably never get another ARR number from Anthropic, which is healthy.
He concludes that combined Anthropic and OpenAI growth is accelerating from the Q3 pace.
Watch Anthropic's roadshow, which Baker expects in several weeks.
Source →TSMC still sees demand exceeding supply after examining AI financing risks
@aleabitoreddit relays that TSMC assessed CSP capex, data-center construction, customer finances and component supply and still concluded demand exceeds supply, with AI accelerator revenue growth possibly exceeding its prior 50%+ CAGR through 2029.
$TSM released earnings today. I was more curious about commentary given recent the market panic. For analyst Q&A rounds: Q:
Wei said TSMC sends staff to verify data-center construction on site and still sees a substantial supply-demand gap.
Watch Whether wafer supply is tighter in 2027 than in 2026.
Source →TheValueist: TSMC's longer capex cycle matters more than its unchanged 2026 budget
TheValueist notes TSMC reiterated a $60-64 billion 2026 capital budget, described nearly 20 fabs in progress and said 2026-2028 spending would be substantially above the preceding three years, with tight tool supply and real tool-price inflation.
SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING EQUIPMENT (2/2) A LONGER INVESTMENT CYCLE MATTERS MORE THAN THE UNCHANGED 2026 CAPITAL BUDGET (READ-THROUGH 6) Affected companies:
TheValueist rates the read-through positive for Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and Tokyo Electron, with company-level magnitude depending on process exposure and awarded orders.
Watch Equipment purchases for new N2 capacity and additional N3 fabs, which need tools before wafer production begins.
Source →AlmaCap: Anthropic's slowdown to +45% QoQ reflects a fragmenting market, not a demand ceiling
AlmaCap notes Anthropic's Q3 growth fell to +45% from +147% in Q2, while OpenAI's run-rate grew 77% in Q3 and open-weight models rose from 7% of Vercel AI Gateway tokens in December to 56% by August.
Anthropic's Q3 came in at "only" +45% QoQ, down from +147% in Q2, and everyone is panicking that AI demand
AlmaCap argues demand is spreading across many providers, citing Google Cloud growth of 48%, 63% and 82% over three quarters.
Watch Meta's Muse revenue, which Citi already models at $27bn by 2030.
Source →