About

You can read the main essay here.

Like many others I have felt a cold draft at the back of my neck for the past few years. The sense that something big is coming, bringing profound changes, not necessarily good. The spur for this essay was that working in the financial world I am constantly exposed to massive numbers connected to the buildout; X company has announced Y mind blowing dollar amount investment in chips, Y company has announced $Z in lease commitments, Z company has issued !!! record breaking bond.

I had been aware something big was happening, but I had no idea of the scale. I started writing this piece because no one else had written an essay (that I could find and hit what I wanted to know) about the scale of the spend, the resources being consumed, the effort that is underway. The CapEx numbers shocked me. Could it really be such a large portion of GDP? I had to check and re-check the math, simple though it was. And they are going to spend even more next year? And what it is paying for, the number of data centres, the amount of energy required.

I believe trends are the best argument for further progress, so that argument is present in the text, but the economic aspect is undexplored. With resources like these being devoted to it, how could we fail to see further progress?

I have long been a lurker in the TPOT, LW, ACX space, so the pace of progress this year shouldn’t have shocked me, but it has. Claude Code has changed the way I work, in those aspects of my work which require it. The achievements in mathematics are far above my level of understanding, but that doesn't matter. I understand clearly that these systems are unbelievably capable. They are nuts.

Such is the pace at which things are moving that there were frequent events which happened while I was working on the essay which forced me into extensive re-writes and additions. CapEx figures have risen and then risen again. New rogue swarms and disturbing revelations about their behaviour. Amateurs solving Erdos problems was the big math story when I started, then the millennium problem, and in the last few days the 700 solutions.

I moved onto implications. I am appalled by how lightly this is being taken by those who are supposed to lead us. As I mention in the essay there is a paucity of serious thought about many different aspects of how this will affect us, and very little in the way of public policy. I will write more about some of these areas in future in the hope of making some small contribution.

You can also follow me on Xitter @good_handle. I haven’t posted very much, but having witnessed the posting to policy pipeline I will be tweeting more.

If you have any corrections, comments etc. drop me a line at pa@takingstock.ai

If you have any interesting opportunities in this space and think the author of this piece might be able to do something for you, reach out at pa@takingstock.ai
I would love to work on this full time, but I’m open to whatever.

Brief CV

• Irish, can work anywhere in EU, UK. Would love to work in the US.
• History + PolSci undergrad TCD, masters Trinity Business school.
• 1 yr tech sales, 1yr logistics, 1 yr failed startup, 1yr fin. services.

P.M.C 17-10-2026.