October 30 2024

1. U.S. Data Center Buildout a Geopolitical Imperative
2. Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Remark Fuels Trump Supporters Resentment
3. Starbucks Faces 7% Sales Drop as GLP-1 Drugs like Ozempic Threaten Business
4. Pentagon Air-Defense Stockpiles Depleted
5. Tensions on Korean Peninsula Rise, Threatening Global War
6. World Series: Yankees force game 5
October 30, 1938: Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio play is broadcast

See the new Ad Astra Podcast! Released on Apple and Spotify around 10a CST.

1. U.S. Data Center Buildout a Geopolitical Imperative

A. Where industrial revolutions happen can reshape global affairs. Britain’s Industrial Revolution made London the center of an empire upon which the sun never set. The digital age took off in Silicon Valley, making the United States home to world-leading technology companies. But if AI leads to the next industrial revolution, that revolution will have been global from the beginning. And in the most chaotic period in world affairs since at least the Cold War, building the infrastructure to sustain the AI revolution is a geopolitical test that companies and countries alike will need to pass. Data centers are the factories of AI, turning energy and data into intelligence. Industry leaders estimate that a few major U.S. technology companies alone are expected to invest more than $600 billion in AI infrastructure, particularly in data centers, between 2023 and 2026. The countries that work with companies to host data centers running AI workloads gain economic, political, and technological advantages and leverage. But data centers also present national security sensitivities, given that they often house high-end, export-controlled semiconductors and governments, businesses, and everyday users send some of their most sensitive information through them. And while the United States is ahead of China in many aspects of AI, especially in software and chip design, America faces significant bottlenecks with data centers. Data centers are critical for the digital economy and AI. But the data center buildout is hitting a wall. The United States is home to the plurality of the world’s data centers, numbering in the thousands. Yet America’s aging energy grid, which powers those data centers, is under enormous strain from a complex set of factors, including rising electricity demand, delayed infrastructure upgrades, extreme weather events, and the complex transition to renewable energy. Meanwhile, surging data center demands driven by rapidly increasing AI workloads are exacerbating the grid’s vulnerabilities. It’s not just a question of how those energy needs can be met, but where. When it comes to data centers, the shortage of powered land in the United States—or more specifically, the shortage of powered land with the connectivity required to support large-scale data centers—combined with supply chain challenges and lengthy permitting timelines for new infrastructure—presents a challenge to realizing both the public and private sectors’ AI ambitions.  

B. The concrete cooling towers that rise from a sliver of land south of Pennsylvania’s capital became symbols nearly a half-century ago of the risks of nuclear energy. Now, a plan to restart one of the two reactors at Three Mile Island is at the leading edge of efforts to greatly expand the country’s reliance on atomic fission to meet the growing power demands of homes, businesses and data centers.  

C. KKR and Energy Capital Partners have agreed to invest a combined $50 billion in data-center and power-generation projects to support the development of artificial intelligence.  

Editor’s note: I think the US will overcome all challenges and build a world leading AI data center network, much like it leveraged its massive resources to mobilize for WWII. However, the challenge will demand considerable financial and material resources.

Article Source: Foreign Policy, NYT, WSJ

2. Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Remark Fuels Trump Supporters Resentment

When Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her marquee closing address on the Ellipse Tuesday to tens of thousands of supporters, President Biden was tucked away at the White House and purposefully out of sight. His absence from the high-profile event in his backyard was the latest example of how Biden has been pushed to the sidelines of a campaign that once centered on him.  Harris faces liabilities in being closely tied to Biden, given voters are upset about high inflation and a surge in illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border during their administration. Her remarks on “The View” suggesting she wouldn’t have done anything differently from Biden have become a central line of attack for Republicans. As many as 57% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of Biden, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll. The president on Tuesday night caused a headache for Harris’s campaign when he appeared to say that Trump’s supporters are “garbage” while on a call with Latino voters. The White House said Biden was referring to one person: Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian who made crude comments at Donald Trump’s Sunday rally. But Republicans seized on the comment, comparing it to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 reference to Trump’s backers as “deplorables.”

Article Source: WSJ

3. Starbucks Faces 7% Sales Drop as GLP-1s like Ozempic Threaten Business

A. Mr. Niccol took over as the Starbucks chief executive on Sept. 9 and quickly laid out what’s wrong at the company. During his first week on the job, he panned the Starbucks store experience in a letter posted on the company’s website: “It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic.” The numbers bear him out. Last week, the coffee giant issued a preliminary report that showed a 7 percent drop in global same-store sales for the fourth quarter amid “a pronounced traffic decline” — 10 percent lower than it was a year earlier. The company, in a sign that it will take time for Mr. Niccol to fix Starbucks’s issues, suspended its financial guidance for the 2025 fiscal year. Investors will be tuning in on Wednesday to hear Mr. Niccol’s early efforts to remedy the maladies he has diagnosed. The company will officially report its fourth-quarter earnings in the afternoon, and there are high expectations for Mr. Niccol, who was wooed from a successful run at Chipotle with a compensation package worth more than $100 million.  

B. According to a study by global asset-management firm Bernstein of how diabetes and weight loss drugs impact food and drink consumption,  “24% of daily coffee drinkers say they now drink less since using a GLP-1.”

Article Source: NYT, Food Dive

4. Pentagon Air-Defense Stockpiles Depleted

The U.S. is running low on some types of air-defense missiles, raising questions about the Pentagon’s readiness to respond to the continuing wars in the Middle East and Europe and a potential conflict in the Pacific. Interceptors are fast becoming the most sought-after ordnance during the widening crisis in the Middle East, as Israel and other U.S. allies face an increasing threat from missiles and drones fired by Iran and the militias it supports. The shortfall could become even more urgent after Israel’s Friday night strikes on Iran, which U.S. officials fear might spark another wave of attacks by Tehran. Standard Missiles, which are usually ship-launched and come in various types, are among the most common interceptors the U.S. has used to defend Israeli territory from Iranian missile attacks, and are critical for stopping Houthi attacks on Western ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. has launched more than 100 Standard Missiles since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, the U.S. officials said. The Defense Department says it doesn’t publicly disclose its stockpiles because the information is classified and could be leveraged by Iran and its proxies

Article Source: WSJ

5. Tensions on Korean Peninsula Rise, Threatening Global War

The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950. That may sound overly dramatic, but we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war. We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s “provocations.” In other words, we do not see the war preparation themes in North Korean media appearing since the beginning of last year as typical bluster from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea). Raising the specter of Pyongyang’s decision to go to a military solution—in effect, to give warning of war—in the absence of “hard” evidence is fraught. Typically, it will be met with the by-now routine argument that Kim Jong Un would not dare take such a step because he “knows” Washington and Seoul would destroy his regime if he does so. If this is what policymakers are thinking, it is the result of a fundamental misreading of Kim’s view of history and a grievous failure of imagination that could be leading (on both Kim’s and Washington’s parts) to a disaster.  

Editors note: If tensions on the Korean Peninsula escalate to war, it would mean major conflicts occurring simultaneously across multiple regions of the world: Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. This scenario would tie down and overextend the United States, potentially giving room for Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea - the New Axis- to reshape the world according to their interests. You could call this WWIII, but I think the introduction of nuclear weapons would make it look very different from WWII. I don’t think nuclear weapons would be used, but the US wouldn’t like a non-US led world and world fight, with uncertain consequences. The 3 month gap between the US election and the inauguration of a new US president is worrisome.  

War is coming

Article Source: 38 North

6. World Series: Yankees force game 5

The Yankees — who got four critical outs from Luke Weaver — became the first team since 1970 to force a Game 5 after losing the first three games of the World Series. The last nine teams facing that deficit had been eliminated in Game 4.

Article Source: NYT

October 30, 1938: Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio play is broadcast

“The War of the Worlds”—Orson Welles's realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth—is broadcast on the radio on October 30, 1938. The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced: “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in ‘War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells.” Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy “Charlie McCarthy” on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway. Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to “the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” Music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that “Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory” had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey. Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. “Good heavens,” he declared, “something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here’s another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me … I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it’s so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.” The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired “heat-ray” weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon “Martian cylinders” landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee. The Federal Communications Commission investigated the unorthodox program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. The broadcast helped Orson Welles land a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane—a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.

Sources

1. A https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/28/ai-geopolitics-data-center-buildout-infrastructure/
B https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/business/energy-environment/three-mile-island-nuclear-energy.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
C https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/wall-street-giants-to-make-50-billion-bet-on-ai-and-power-projects-b435a549?st=G4eYai&reflink=article_copyURL_share

2. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/biden-sits-uncomfortably-on-the-campaigns-sidelines-a72915b7?mod=hp_lead_pos2

3. A https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/business/starbucks-customers-brian-niccol.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
B https://www.fooddive.com/news/why-weight-loss-drugs-could-be-bad-news-for-coffee-and-soft-drinks-beverages/707734/

4. https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-runs-low-on-air-defense-missiles-as-demand-surges-7fc9370c?mod=hp_lead_pos1

5. https://www.38north.org/2024/01/is-kim-jong-un-preparing-for-war/

6. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5883982/2024/10/29/dodgers-yankees-world-series-game-4-takeaways/?source=user_shared_article