Mark Armstrong
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fabricatus.com
Mark Armstrong
@fabricatus.com
420 followers 470 following 3.2K posts
Business intelligence analyst and database specialist. Science is my first love, but I also enjoy SF, Fantasy & TTRPG's He/Him. Originally Irish but I’m an Aussie now.
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Reposted by Mark Armstrong
edzitron.com
To write this newsletter, and to back up future reporting, I created my own model for data center costs, one I validated with multiple experts and analysts. AI data centers are awful businesses, and I'm very worried about what happens next.
edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...
per chip GB200 Racks All in Capex $/Chip $41,667 All in Capex per W $/W $31 GPU Rental Rate $/W per Yr $12.50 Site Crit IT MW 880 PUE x 1.3 Total Power Draw MW 1144 BTM Redundancy % 0.05 Total BTM Power MW 1201.2 GPU Rental Rate $/W per Yr $12.50 GPU Biz Model Revenue $M/year $11,000 Crit IT Capex $M/year $26,889 Crit IT Depreciation Period Yrs 6 Crit IT Depreciation Cost $/Yr $4,481 Electricity Price $/kwh $0.0790 Electricity Hours Hr/Year 8760 Electricity Cost $/Yr $791.7 Other Opex (% of rev) $/Yr $1,320 Colo Price per Month $/Kw/Mth $95 Colo Cost $Mn per Year $1,003 Total Cost Per Year $Mn per Year $7,596 Annual Gross Profit $/Year $3,404 % Gross Margin % 30.9%
February 13, 2026 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
edzitron.com
Tomorrow's Premium: The Great Data Center Financial Crisis, where 20-40% margins are only possible after years of construction and billions in debt, and if we don't have $100bn in demand by 2028, everything's a wash.

Here's $10 off annual.
edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo...
If Non-OpenAI/Anthropic AI Compute Isn’t A $100 Billion A Year Business By 2028, 75%+ Of AI Data Centers Will Go Under I realize this sounds dramatic, but hear me out. If we assume a comparable amount of US-based data center deals happen in 2026, that means that we’re going to need at least $80 billion in annual compute business to make any of it make sense. I realize that somebody could say that Anthropic, OpenAI and hyperscalers are spending $X on compute, but remember: hyperscalers are spending nearly $700 billion in the next year, and while some of that $178.5 billion in debt may be considered theirs, the vast majority of it is likely from independent developers hoping to scoop up some of the revenue from the “insatiable demand for AI compute.” What’s truly insatiable is AI’s appetite for debt. AI is so expensive to build for that it necessitates massive amounts of upfront capital, and because most AI data centers are being built by either brand new entities or cryptocurrency miners attempting to move onto their next grift, the debt is often high-interest, and gosh darn do these motherfuckers need a lot of it. There are also blatantly obvious signs that the demand doesn’t exist, the most glaring being that NVIDIA has pledged $26 billion of its own money to pay its customers to rent back its GPUs per its last earnings: Multi-year cloud service agreement commitments as of October 26, 2025, were $26 billion for which $1 billion, $6 billion, $6 billion, $5 billion, $4 billion, and $4 billion will be paid in fiscal years 2026 (fourth quarter), 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, and 2031 & thereafter, respectively. Some cloud service capacity may be reduced, terminated or sold to others by the CSPs, in which case our commitments will be reduced. We expect cloud service agreements to be used to support our research and development efforts and DGX Cloud offerings. NVIDIA is also planning to lease 200MW of data center capacity funded entirely by junk bonds, for some reason. … Why AI Data Centers Are So Uniquely Unstable So, why hasn’t this been a problem in the past? Scale: in the past, data centers were way, way smaller. It was a big deal back in 2023 when Applied Digital vowed to build a 5MW data center that would have 300 GPUs, and likely a lot cheaper to build. Up-Front Cost For Critical IT: building an AI data center is a fucking nightmare for your balance sheet, as you need thousands of GPUs that each cost $50,000 or more and require massive server racks, networking and all sorts of other crap to make them run, and when they finally turn on, revenues have to fill a massive hole. Up-Front Cost For Construction, Power and Cooling: All of that specialized GPU compute requires a bunch of specialized cooling and infrastructure, as well as way, way more power. They Take Years To Build: Depending on the data center, construction can take anywhere from a year to three years. Stargate Abilene started construction in 2024, and won’t be finished until 2027 at the earliest. All of these factors create massive, impossible-to-avoid charges up front, which requires massive debt to fund them, followed by onerous construction timelines, at which point these data centers better have a fucking customer, or they’re absolutely quad-fucked. The Money Does Not Exist To Make AI Data Centers Make Sense So, one clapback against this piece is to suggest that OpenAI and Anthropic will combine to spend over $550 billion by 2030, and my answer there is “how?” You see, neither company can actually afford to pay that much, and thus rely on a near-constant flume of venture capital to the point that new rounds require a fucking We Are The World telethon to get done. Anthropic’s $30 billion round had thirty seven different investors, which heavily suggests we’re hitting the limits of what venture capital, private equity and even hyperscalers can afford to fund these companies. And to be clear, even with an IPO, neither of these companies can afford to pay their current commitments, and both of these companies are the only entities using large amounts of compute. Anthropic needed that money less than five months after it raised $13 billion! OpenAI is already trying to raise another $100 billion despite receiving $22.5 billion from SoftBank less than two months ago! And really, where’s the rest of the demand? Because unless the AI compute industry is going to 10x in the next 12 months, the demand does not exist! If the argument is that AI startups will want to rent these GPUs directly, then I simply must ask where that money is coming from, because they’re all unprofitable too? Tell me: what happens when the majority of this data center debt goes tits up? That’s the scenario we’re setting up for. How The Chain Of Pain Breaks The Back Of The Data Center Boom There are really two scenarios here: either there’s a massive, unbelievable surge of AI demand that floods AI data centers with tens of billions of dollars of revenue in the next year, or the majority of data center debt deals are left unpaid. Regardless, the raw economics of the AI data center boom are horrendous. Even in the best-case scenario, with guaranteed tenancy for years, these data centers are so debt-dependent and drenched in depreciation, opex and maintenance that even the most meager margins are hard to attain. Even if you believe that every data center occupant will be timely with its payments, my model shows that even the slightest push or delay can send costs spiralling out of control, and any failure by OpenAI or CoreWeave will likely create a cascade effect, choking off any potential new data center deals and breeding anxiety in the hearts of those who have already issued them. CoreWeave is likely the first domino to fall, and when it does so, it’ll rip a hole in Applied Digital’s balance sheet, and potentially kill Core Scientific, a company with a negative 46.7% operating margin who counts CoreWeave as its largest customer. AI data centers cost too much to build and by extension require too much debt. Their margins stink, their customers are all either compute-curious hedge funds or unprofitable startups, and - I don’t say this lightly - rely on a near-distant future where $50 billion to $100 billion of AI compute spend pops up effectively overnight. And then there’s Oracle, who has tied itself to a billion-dollar failson in OpenAI. Even if it can get the lousy 30.9% margins I believe it’s making on Stargate Abilene, the costs associated with building, maintaining and running it are likely to swallow either Oracle or Crusoe whole far before the completion of the data center. Oracle can try and cover the losses by selling more shares and raising more debt, but at some point it…
February 13, 2026 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
maxgrobinson.bsky.social
Kids frantically pushing aside the new Pokemon and Mandalorian LEGO sets in Target to purchase the ANE MÆRSK container vessel
February 12, 2026 at 11:49 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
leovongripsholm.bsky.social
Cartoon. Person says to other person „We invented a robot that answers questions.“, adding, „we just have to feed it 10 baby giraffes a day“. The other person asks „But it answers the questions correctly?“ Person responds „Oh my goodness, no. No no no no no.“ By Aram J. French Appropriated due to missing alt text
February 12, 2026 at 1:44 PM
fabricatus.com
We've already bought a different product to avoid the chance of being part of Ring's surveillance network. We just want to see who is at the door, not subsidise someone else's panopticon.
theverge.com The Verge @theverge.com · 2d
Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
Flock off
buff.ly
February 12, 2026 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
tomtomorrow.bsky.social
super bowl advertising is effective! maybe not how you were hoping.
theverge.com The Verge @theverge.com · 2d
Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash
Flock off
buff.ly
February 12, 2026 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
nome.bsky.social
I have a friend who said, of Starfleet Academy, that this took them out of it - that seeing a person in a wheelchair in the 32nd century seemed unrealistic, since medicine in Star Trek "should be able to cure whatever was wrong with them."

That's not the case, for any number of possible reasons.
Lines of academy cadets, one in command red seated but at attention while in a wheelchair.
February 12, 2026 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
incessanttapping.bsky.social
A+ sign in Melbourne this week
A sign at the protest in Melbourne today that reads: Anthony Albanese MP We want social cohesion? No, Inviting War Criminals!
February 12, 2026 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
astrokatie.com
My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse
February 11, 2026 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
newedgeswordmag.bsky.social
It's issue 10's cover! Illustrated by @smuggerby.bsky.social
💀TIMEWORN TERRA🌏️ is our special issue of tales set in futures so far they feel ancient, where magic & technology blur together, and Earth's days are short yet still we lust & laugh!
Learn more here👉️ www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...
February 5, 2026 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
cathywilcox.bsky.social
Cohesion.
My @smh cartoon.
Single frame. Chris Minns stands beside a massive tonne weight marked NSW POLICE being lowered by a crane. Visible sticking out from under the weight are hands, legs, a woman’s face, a keffiyeh and placards saying “NO TO GENOCIDE”, “FREE PALESTINE”, “HERZOG OUT”, “NO TO VIOLENCE” Minns says, “Thst should socially cohere them nicely.”
February 10, 2026 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
thespaceshipper.com
Project Hail Mary (March 20): Final trailer

Very good trailer for what promises to be a great sci-fi movie, but beware, it reveals a lot about the story and, above all, shows a lot of Rocky. ☝️
Project Hail Mary | Final Trailer
YouTube video by Amazon MGM Studios
www.youtube.com
February 8, 2026 at 10:09 PM
fabricatus.com
Awwww the AI is apologizing. Reminds me of something...
February 8, 2026 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
edzitron.com
What’s also great is reading the dialogue with Claude where it stops and says “I need to stop and be honest with you about something important” and reveals it deleted every single photo. Software built for dunces
This idiot’s convo with Claude: desktop for easy navigation Great, I have a clear plan. Let me get to work! Attempted to delete Office temp lock files from Desktop > I need to request delete permission first. Updated todo list with Office cleanup and folder organization tasks > Now let me create the folder structure and start organizing. I'll create the main folders first, then move files in parallel. Updated todo list with completed file management tasks > Now let me move all the screenshots — this is the big one. I'll use a script to parse the dates and route them to the right year/month folder. Organized and moved screenshot files from Desktop > All 755 screenshots moved. Now let me handle photos, documents, and the garbled folders in parallel: Updated todo list with completed file cleanup tasks > Now let me consolidate the remaining folders into the organized structure: Checked Desktop directory contents and verified file organization > I need to stop and be honest with you about something important. I made a mistake while reorganizing the photos. When I tried to merge the lowercase "photos" folder with a new "Photos" folder, I didn't account for your Mac's case-insensitive filesystem - where "photos" and "Photos" are treated as the same folder. My script ran rm -rf on what it thought was a separate empty folder, but it actually deleted your existing "photos" directory and its contents. Opus uses your limit faster. Try another model for longer conversations. Reply.... + Opus
February 8, 2026 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
redmondgeek.bsky.social
Screenshot of Threads Post: Greg Bovino was asked how he felt about his demotion today. "Well, obviously, I'm not happy"", he replied. Someone in the crowd shouted back, "So which one are you?"
February 6, 2026 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
wearequeeraf.com
A government report rebuked @wearequeeraf.com for reporting on whistleblowers who said there had been a spike in suicides after the Tavistock shuttered

These numbers from @goodlawproject.org show our reporting was justified, and critical

What have we learned? 🧵

goodlawproject.org/new-data-sho...
Screenshot of Good Law Project website with headline: New data shows surge in trans kids’ suicides following healthcare rollbacks
February 7, 2026 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
scavendish.bsky.social
Metry and her husband of 4 years go to DHS to get their I-130 in motion. "Good news" a DHS employee told them, the form to start her naturalization was approved.

DHS employee asks the husband to follow him through a secure door. When it locks behind him, ICE detains his wife to deport her.
nashvillebanner.bsky.social Nashville Banner @nashvillebanner.bsky.social · 8d
EXCLUSIVE: Terez Metry was 13 when her family fled to Tennessee from Egypt in 2011. Then, they left her behind. She only recently discovered she had an order of removal from 2011. But she was following the legal path to citizenship. On Monday, at a routine DHS meeting, Metry was detained.
Immigration process turns sour for an Antioch woman - Nashville Banner
Terez Metry, a dental assistant in Middle Tennessee with no criminal history, was detained by ICE during an interview as she followed legal steps toward citizenship.
nashvillebanner.com
February 6, 2026 at 10:00 PM
fabricatus.com
My wife has made gluten free Black Forest gateaux for dessert tonight as a practice run for my birthday soon. Soon I will look a lot like this:
a young boy eating a chocolate cake with a netflix logo in the corner
Alt: a young boy shovelling a chocolate cake into his face hole with both hands with a face of sublime bliss.
media.tenor.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
johannamation.bsky.social
My piping hot take on PLURIBUS is that it’s one of the most Ghibli-esque shows on TV today, and people who think its pacing is too slow ought to really sit with and examine why they feel that slow pace = bad.

Its first season has several minutes worth of “mā”, and is much stronger for it, IMO
SCREENCRAFT WHAT IS "MA"? In an interview with film critic Roger Ebert from 2002, Ebert tells Miyazaki he appreciates what he calls "gratuitous motion" in his films, adding that, "Instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or they will sigh, or look in a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are," said Ebert. Miyazaki answered with, "We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called Ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally."
February 7, 2026 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
alexvont.bsky.social
A scammer just tried exactly this on me via WhatsApp. Glad I saw a post here recently outlining the scam - it would be very easy to fall for. The “hotel” account had an unconvincing name, but they had my name, number & reservation dates. lifehacker.com/money/hotel-...
This New Hotel Reservation Scam Is Fooling People Who Use Sites Like Booking.com
If you've booked a hotel through a platform like Booking.com or Expedia, beware any communication that directs you to confirm your payment details to hold your reservation.
lifehacker.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:03 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
clairewillett.bsky.social
one of the greatest human triumphs of my lifetime is the relentless, unceasing, heroic effort by DECADES' worth of doctors and scientists to find a cure for a disease much of the world didn't take seriously for years because it predominantly affected a community they thought kinda deserved it
nome.bsky.social Nome @nome.bsky.social · 8d
Just because good news is worth celebrating:

There is now a Prep medication that is an *every six month* injection.

HIV has, effectively, a vaccination.
February 7, 2026 at 1:37 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
janrosenow.bsky.social
"But what about China?" has been a throwaway comment made many times to justify inaction on climate change or criticise decarbonisation policies.

Well China is now by far the world's largest manufacturer, installer, and user of clean energy technologies.
February 6, 2026 at 1:42 PM
fabricatus.com
I’ve managed to buy John Scalzi’s book “The Collapsing Empire” three times now. I managed to do that with Peter F Hamilton’s “Saints Salvation” as well. I think it’s time I keep a book inventory on my phone for when I next venture into a book shop!
February 7, 2026 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Mark Armstrong
jonbois.bsky.social
this is why you should *never* hit someone with an rpg. it’s dangerous, it’s shitty, and it’s wrong
February 7, 2026 at 1:53 AM
fabricatus.com
A particularly disturbing and brutal method of execution was being “fired from a canon” where the condemned were strapped to the front a canon and obliterated. This was performed by the British recently enough that photos (before shots) exist:

rarehistoricalphotos.com/execution-ca...
February 7, 2026 at 3:48 AM