AI · Founder letter · 2026-05-01

The world is built out of a few narrow places

Why I built AI Bottlenecks, what the AI buildout actually rests on, and why the most interesting story in markets right now is happening five layers below where everyone is looking.

Dylan Austin Bristot, Founder and publisher, AI Bottlenecks

The narrow places

AI looks like software from the surface. Underneath it sits a physical chain of lithography, memory, packaging, photonics, power, cooling and field execution. Each layer has its own capacity cycle and a supplier base far smaller than the market it supports.

Why build the map

AI Bottlenecks follows those constraints from material to delivered system. The work is source-led, public where possible and explicit about what would weaken a thesis. It is a framework for walking the chain, not a model portfolio or a recommendation.

The operating idea

The most useful question is not which model wins. It is which input cannot be expanded quickly, who owns qualified capacity, what evidence shows the constraint is real, and what would make it loosen.