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AI has created an enormous winner in the memory business. SK hynix. At the center of that success is HBM, or High Bandwidth Memory. HBM has become one of the most important components in the AI boom. But recently, Cathie Wood raised an interesting question. She remains highly optimistic about AI. Yet she has been reluctant to own memory companies such as SK hynix and Micron. That sounds strange. If AI keeps growing, shouldn't it need more HBM? And if it needs more HBM, shouldn't the companies making it keep benefiting? The answer may be more complicated. First, What Does HBM Actually Do? Think of AI as a giant kitchen. An NVIDIA GPU is an incredibly fast chef. But even the fastest chef can't cook if the ingredients arrive too slowly. So the chef needs a very fast supply of ingredients nearby. That's roughly what HBM does. GPU = the chef HBM = the high-speed ingredient station next to the chef As AI models process more data, that fast access to memory ...

AI has a heat problem. Thousands of GPUs running around the clock generate enormous amounts of heat. That heat has to go somewhere, which means modern AI data centers need increasingly sophisticated cooling systems. So there is an obvious question: Why not build them somewhere cold? Alaska. Iceland. Northern Canada. Finland. If cooling is such a problem, putting servers somewhere that is cold for much of the year sounds almost too obvious. And here's the interesting part. The idea isn't wrong. Cold climates can help data centers reject heat more efficiently. Weather conditions, including temperature and humidity, can affect cooling design, energy efficiency and water use. Cold is useful. But for an AI data center, something else can be even more valuable. Power. AI Data Centers Are Becoming Power Projects Imagine finding the perfect piece of land. It's cold. It's large. It's relatively cheap. But there is one problem: You can't get enough ele...

Search for one seat on a flight. It costs $300. Now change the search to two passengers. Same day. Same flight. Same economy cabin. But suddenly, the price is $380 per person. Nothing about the airplane changed. Only the number of people did. It feels like the airline just raised the price because you searched again. Sometimes, the explanation can be much simpler. There may have been only one seat left at the cheaper fare. Economy isn't really one price Imagine an airplane with 200 economy seats. It's tempting to think of them as 200 copies of the same $300 product. Airlines don't necessarily sell them that way. Seats are traditionally managed through different booking classes, fare rules and levels of availability. Discounted inventory can be limited while other inventory remains available at higher fares. Airlines use these controls as part of revenue management — deciding how much lower-priced inventory to make available while preserving capacity for passen...

Netflix charges $19.99 a month for its standard ad-free plan in the United States. On some microdrama apps, roughly the same amount can buy a week. The episodes may last less time than it takes to make coffee. Some are only 45 seconds long. Many end before the two-minute mark. And somehow, people keep watching. In fact, they are watching enough to turn what looks like disposable phone entertainment into a serious business. Microdramas are expected to generate about $1.5 billion in U.S. revenue in 2026 , according to Omdia. That figure is projected to approach $2 billion next year. The audience has expanded just as quickly: roughly 66 million monthly active users watched microdramas in the U.S. last year, up from 26 million in 2024. This raises a strange question. If Netflix gives you an enormous library of movies and television for about $20 a month, how can an app built around two-minute soap operas charge anything close to $20 a week? The answer begins with what happens at ...

In 2024, nearly 300 people gathered in Nashville for an unusual conference. They were Christians. The first day focused on the Bible and economics. The second turned more directly to Bitcoin and the church. The speakers included pastors, theologians, economics professors, Bitcoin developers, entrepreneurs and investors. The name of the conference was Thank God for Bitcoin . It sounds like an unlikely combination. Christianity is thousands of years old. Bitcoin began in 2009. So what brought them together? The answer leads to a question much older than Bitcoin: What makes money good? Can money be honest? The Bible has plenty to say about money: debt, wealth, greed, stewardship and honest weights and measures. Some Christian Bitcoin advocates extend those ideas to the monetary system itself. Central banks can change interest rates and influence the supply of money. That flexibility is an important tool in modern economies. But Bitcoiners ask a different question: Should any...