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Exponential Learning · Yesterday · 15 min

The Data Centre Is a Factory

Hosking Partners' Q3 2026 letter, via MastersInvest: a London value manager beat global markets by 6.3% YTD owning almost none of the AI winners — and its diagnosis of the AI buildout is the sharpest we've read. Cap ex doubled to T (a railway-boom share of GDP); 00B+ of IG debt issued in 2026 alone, .1T more by 2030; credit investors now run the industry through SPVs and off-balance-sheet leases while token prices fall. The core claim: the data centre is a factory, compute is a commodity — load-the-plant economics will push token pricing toward marginal cost, the way solar was commoditized (and China-dominated). The .5T OpenAI/Anthropic flotations are the exam. Plus: how they won without AI (Greek refiners, Norwegian tankers +440% since 2017, Saga's 25% ROIC, 80 Japanese small caps), the honest 260bp cost of missing mega-cap tech, a full steelman of the other side, and why the factory thesis actually CONFIRMS the energized-land view — factories commoditize, tollbooths don't.

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Hosking Partners' Q3 2026 letter, via MastersInvest: a London value manager beat global markets by 6.3% YTD owning almost none of the AI winners — and its diagnosis of the AI buildout is the sharpest we've read. Cap ex doubled to T (a railway-boom share of GDP); 00B+ of IG debt issued in 2026 alone, .1T more by 2030; credit investors now run the industry through SPVs and off-balance-sheet leases while token prices fall. The core claim: the data centre is a factory, compute is a commodity — load-the-plant economics will push token pricing toward marginal cost, the way solar was commoditized (and China-dominated). The .5T OpenAI/Anthropic flotations are the exam. Plus: how they won without AI (Greek refiners, Norwegian tankers +440% since 2017, Saga's 25% ROIC, 80 Japanese small caps), the honest 260bp cost of missing mega-cap tech, a full steelman of the other side, and why the factory thesis actually CONFIRMS the energized-land view — factories commoditize, tollbooths don't.

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