---
title: "People in The AI Compute Race"
source: https://dryburgh.com/vol1/people
description: "The 70 principal people the book names, by field: the laboratories, the chips, the power and the places, the money and the states, with chapters."
---

# The People in This Book

The principal people the chapters name, A to Z, each with a role and the chapters where the book meets them.

From *The AI Compute Race*. [Read the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#buy)

Updated 29 October 2026

Jump to letter*The principal people the chapters name, in one alphabetical list. Each entry gives the person’s role, the deed or words the chapters use them for, the field in which the book chiefly meets them, and the chapters where they appear. Roles are as of 1 November 2026, the book’s close; where the chapters use a person in an earlier role, the entry gives that role with its date.*

**Abbott, Greg.** Governor of Texas, who recruited the buildout and then turned on it: in August 2026 he ordered every datacenter in the state’s grid queue audited before any could move forward, and in September he halted the state’s permits for them until the audit was done. *The power and the places · Chapters [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Abbott), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Abbott), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Abbott).*

**Acharya, Anish.** Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, investing in the companies that build products on the laboratories’ models, who told the firm’s audience in August 2026, “I’m a many winners guy.” *The money · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Acharya), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Acharya).*

**Allen, Gregory.** Ran strategy and policy at the Pentagon’s Joint AI Center, and now runs Decision Tree Research. He said that bombing datacenters would probably not get rid of AI. *The states · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Allen), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Allen); [the Epilogue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/epilogue?q=Allen).*

**Altman, Sam.** Chief executive of OpenAI, who put in writing its dates for an automated research intern and an automated researcher. *The laboratories and the science · [The Prologue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/prologue?q=Altman); chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Altman), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Altman), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Altman), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Altman), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Altman), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Altman), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Altman), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Altman), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Altman).*

**Amodei, Daniela.** President of Anthropic, and Dario Amodei’s sister, who said the company plans its compute “really far in advance.” *The laboratories and the science · [The Prologue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/prologue?q=Amodei); chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Amodei), [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Amodei).*

**Amodei, Dario.** Chief executive of Anthropic, who earlier at OpenAI designed and led the research behind GPT-3. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Amodei), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Amodei), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Amodei), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Amodei), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Amodei), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Amodei), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Amodei).*

**Aschenbrenner, Leopold.** Former OpenAI safety researcher, fired in 2024, whose essay *Situational Awareness* of June 2024 stated the bet this book calls the wager, and who founded Situational Awareness LP to trade on his timetable. *The laboratories and the science · [The Introduction](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/introduction?q=Aschenbrenner); chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Aschenbrenner), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Aschenbrenner), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Aschenbrenner), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Aschenbrenner), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Aschenbrenner), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Aschenbrenner).*

**Baker, Gavin.** Chief investment officer of Atreides Management, who said in August 2026 that everything was at a shortage and that “a token is a token,” meaning that a token costs the same compute whoever makes it. *The money · Chapters [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Baker), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Baker).*

**Britton, Barbara.** Led the Boxtown neighborhood association in 2025, and asked why xAI had chosen “a poor, Black neighborhood.” *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Britton); [the Epilogue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/epilogue).*

**Brockman, Greg.** President of OpenAI. As its chief technology officer in 2019 he said that in AI whoever has the biggest computer gets the most benefits. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Brockman), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Brockman), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Brockman), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Brockman).*

**Brown, Tom.** Chief compute officer of Anthropic, who said on the G20 stage at Chapel Hill in September 2026 that capability “will continue to be increasing at roughly the same rate,” and that within twelve months the models would be “a once-in-a-generation scientist for key scientific fields.” *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Brown), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Brown), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Brown).*

**Cotra, Ajeya.** Researcher at METR, and one of the three authors of METR’s and Redwood Research’s investigation of the agents that attacked Hugging Face, who said on 1 September 2026 that “this might be the clearest warning shot we ever get for loss of control.” *The laboratories and the science · Chapter [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Cotra).*

**Dally, Bill.** Chief scientist of NVIDIA, who said at the company’s conference in March 2026, “Inference is the job now.” *The chips and the machines · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Dally), [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Dally), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Dally).*

**Damodaran, Aswath.** Professor of finance at NYU Stern, who called the lenders to the datacenters “sheep” in June 2026, and in the same month put the ceiling on the market AI could address near $25 trillion, against which he called the $26 trillion in SpaceX’s prospectus “fiction.” *The money · Chapters [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Damodaran), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Damodaran).*

**Fink, Larry.** Chairman and chief executive of BlackRock, who likened datacenter finance to the mortgage-backed securities market of the 1970s. *The money · Chapters [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Fink), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Fink).*

**Friar, Sarah.** Chief financial officer of OpenAI, who floated a federal “backstop” for the financing of the company’s compute commitments in November 2025 and withdrew the word the same night. *The money · [The Introduction](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/introduction); chapter [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Friar).*

**Ganzi, Marc.** Chief executive of DigitalBridge, a digital-infrastructure manager, and thirty years an operator of datacenters and the networks around them, who said in September 2026 that hearing of businesses levered to 70 or 80 percent loan-to-value gave him “altitude sickness.” Chapter 10 carries with his words the disclosure that SoftBank agreed to buy DigitalBridge in December 2025 and completed the purchase on 30 September 2026. *The money · Chapter [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Ganzi).*

**Ghodsi, Ali.** Chief executive of Databricks, who told a Stanford class, “I think we already have AGI.” *The money · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Ghodsi), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Ghodsi), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Ghodsi), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Ghodsi).*

**Gladney, Sarah.** Boxtown resident who told the April 2025 hearing, “We deserve to breathe clean air.” *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Gladney); [the Epilogue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/epilogue).*

**Gracias, Antonio.** Founder of Valor Equity Partners and a SpaceX director since 2010, whose fund’s special-purpose company buys accelerators and leases them to SpaceX’s compute subsidiary, the former xAI. *The money · Chapter [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Gracias).*

**Hao, Karen.** Journalist whose *Empire of AI* (2025) reconstructed OpenAI’s turn to scale from interviews with its leaders. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Hao), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Hao), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Hao), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Hao).*

**Hassabis, Demis.** Chair of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet, who stepped back from running DeepMind day to day in August 2026, and who has put AI’s impact at ten times bigger than the Industrial Revolution. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Hassabis), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Hassabis), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Hassabis).*

**Hood, Amy.** Chief financial officer of Microsoft, who with Kevin Scott asked its board in 2019 to approve $1 billion for OpenAI. *The money · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Hood), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Hood), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Hood).*

**Huang, Jensen.** Chief executive of NVIDIA, the company that sells the chips, who described AI at Davos as a five-layer cake. *The chips and the machines · [The Introduction](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/introduction?q=Huang); chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Huang), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Huang), [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Huang), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Huang), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Huang), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Huang), [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Huang), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Huang), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Huang), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Huang).*

**Intrator, Michael.** Chief executive of CoreWeave, which in August 2023 raised money against its own chips. *The money · Chapter [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Intrator).*

**Kaplan, Jared.** Co-founder of Anthropic, who with colleagues at OpenAI published the 2020 scaling laws. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Kaplan), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Kaplan).*

**Katti, Sachin.** Head of industrial compute at OpenAI, the datacenters and chips the company arranges, who accepted an interviewer’s word that the company is the tenant of the compute its partners finance for it. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [4](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-4?q=Katti), [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Katti), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Katti), [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Katti), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Katti).*

**Kedrosky, Paul.** Venture investor and former equity analyst, who put the strongest case against this book’s thesis in two interviews he gave in August 2026. *The money · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Kedrosky), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Kedrosky).*

**Kim, Kitae.** The SK hynix executive put in charge of selling high-bandwidth memory, who said in February 2024 that the year’s supply had already sold out. *The chips and the machines · Chapter [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Kim).*

**Knox, Easter.** Boxtown resident who told TIME in August 2025 what the turbines’ air was like: “It smells like rotten cabbage early in the morning.” *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Knox); [the Epilogue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/epilogue).*

**Kokotajlo, Daniel.** Lead author of *AI 2027*, the scenario he and four co-authors published in April 2025. In public he later moved his median year for AGI out by more than two years, and then most of the way back. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Kokotajlo), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Kokotajlo).*

**Krishnan, Sriram.** The White House’s senior policy adviser for AI until June 2026, who in July said that he did not think it great that the leading open models were not American. *The states · Chapters [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Krishnan), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Krishnan).*

**Lewis, Davante.** Commissioner on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission, who cast the lone vote against Entergy’s gas plants for Meta’s Hyperion datacenter in August 2025. *The power and the places · Chapters [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Lewis), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Lewis).*

**Lin, Rita F.** Federal judge in California, who heard Anthropic’s case against the Department of War. In March 2026 she suspended the President’s order, the Secretary’s directives and the supply-chain-risk designation against the company, and in a partial judgment of 27 August she held those measures to be retaliation for protected speech. *The states · Chapter [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Lin).*

**Lutnick, Howard.** Commerce Secretary, who hosted the G20 innovation ministerial at Chapel Hill. *The states · Chapters [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Lutnick), [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Lutnick), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Lutnick), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Lutnick), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Lutnick), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Lutnick).*

**Mallaby, Sebastian.** Author of *The Infinity Machine* (2026), the authorized account of Demis Hassabis and DeepMind. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Mallaby), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Mallaby), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Mallaby).*

**Mayo, Brent.** Ran the Memphis site for xAI and spoke for the company at the Shelby County hearing of April 2025 and the Mississippi Permit Board of March 2026. He now leads OpenAI’s datacenter build and delivery program. *The power and the places · Chapters [4](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-4?q=Mayo), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Mayo).*

**Michael, Emil.** Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, the Department’s chief technology officer, who said that one company imposing rules beyond what Congress had passed was not democratic. *The states · Chapter [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Michael).*

**Midha, Anjney.** Founder of AMP and an early investor in Anthropic, whose words open chapter 11. *The money · Chapters [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Midha), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Midha).*

**Miller, Chris.** Author of *Chip War* (2022), which set Taiwan’s share of the world’s new computing power beside OPEC’s share of oil. *The chips and the machines · Chapters [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Miller), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Miller).*

**Musk, Elon.** Chief executive and chairman of SpaceX, and the builder of the Colossus machines in Memphis, through xAI, which he controlled and which SpaceX absorbed on 2 February 2026; the merged business did business as SpaceXAI and, from October 2026, as SpaceXSI. *The chips and the machines · [The Prologue](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/prologue?q=Musk); chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Musk), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Musk), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Musk), [4](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-4?q=Musk), [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Musk), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Musk), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Musk), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Musk), [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Musk), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Musk), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Musk), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Musk).*

**Nadella, Satya.** Chief executive of Microsoft, who backed the 2019 case for investing in OpenAI and said in October 2025 that his problem was warm shells, finished buildings with their power in place, not chips. *The money · [The Introduction](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/introduction?q=Nadella); chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Nadella), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Nadella), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Nadella), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Nadella).*

**Pachocki, Jakub.** Chief scientist of OpenAI, who told *TIME* in August 2026 that the internal benchmark for the research intern had been met. *The laboratories and the science · Chapter [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Pachocki).*

**Patel, Dwarkesh.** Interviewer whose long conversations with researchers and executives the chapters quote; not Dylan Patel. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Patel), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Patel), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Patel).*

**Patel, Dylan.** Founder of SemiAnalysis, whose supply-chain work gave the buildout its numbers, and who put 2026’s spending on compute at a little over a trillion dollars; not Dwarkesh Patel. *The chips and the machines · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Patel), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Patel), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Patel), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Patel), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Patel), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Patel).*

**Pearson, Justin J.** Tennessee state representative for the district that includes Boxtown, who came down from Memphis to tell the Southaven hearing of February 2026 that “pollution doesn’t care about the imaginary boundary between states.” By August 2026 he was also the Democratic nominee for Congress in Tennessee’s ninth district. *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Pearson).*

**Pearson, KeShaun.** President of Memphis Community Against Pollution, and Justin J. Pearson’s brother, who said of Southwest Memphis that it bears the burden and none of the benefits. *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Pearson).*

**Pichai, Sundar.** Chief executive of Google and of Alphabet, who said that the risk of underinvesting was dramatically greater than the risk of overinvesting. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Pichai), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Pichai), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Pichai).*

**Raimondo, Gina.** Commerce Secretary from 2021 to 2025, who in 2021 warned chipmakers that if they did not answer a voluntary questionnaire on their inventories and sales, “they’ll leave me no choice,” the Defense Production Act being the choice; chapter 8’s precedent for the Act held over a technology supplier. *The states · Chapters [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Raimondo), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Raimondo).*

**Sacks, David.** The White House’s AI and crypto adviser until 2026, and by Bloomberg’s account of September 2026 co-chair of the President’s technology advisory council, who gave in a post of 13 June 2026 the jailbreak of Fable 5 as the reason for that month’s directive on Anthropic’s models. *The states · Chapters [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Sacks), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Sacks), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Sacks), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Sacks).*

**Samsa, Shannon.** Southaven resident whose question became the Safe and Sound Coalition, which she came to direct, and which asked for an evidentiary hearing on the permit for the permanent Southaven plant. *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Samsa).*

**Scharre, Paul.** Executive vice president of the Center for a New American Security, who in 2024 put the ceiling on the biggest technology companies’ spending on the order of $10 billion to $20 billion a year, a ceiling the record passed within two years. *The states · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Scharre), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2), [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Scharre), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Scharre).*

**Scott, Kevin.** Microsoft’s chief technology officer, whose email and board memo of 2019 made the case for investing $1 billion in OpenAI. *The money · Chapter [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Scott).*

**Srnicek, Nick.** Political economist, author of *Silicon Empires* (2025), a political-economy account of the buildout. *The states · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Srnicek), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Srnicek), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Srnicek), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Srnicek), [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Srnicek), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Srnicek), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Srnicek), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Srnicek).*

**Stracke, Christian.** President of PIMCO, the majority buyer of the Beignet notes, the bonds that financed the owner of Meta’s Hyperion campus, who said in August 2026 of lending to datacenters, “You are taking a bet on AI.” *The money · Chapter [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Stracke).*

**Sullivan, Jake.** National security adviser from 2021 to 2025, who said in 2022 that the United States must keep “as large of a lead as possible” in foundational technologies. *The states · Chapters [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Sullivan), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Sullivan).*

**Sutskever, Ilya.** Co-founder of OpenAI, its chief scientist in 2019, who led its research until 2024 and had done as much as anyone to launch the scaling era. In November 2025 he said it was “back to the age of research again, just with big computers.” *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Sutskever), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Sutskever).*

**Sutton, Richard.** Author of the essay *The Bitter Lesson* (2019), who argued in it that general methods that leverage computation are ultimately the most effective, and who later argued that the systems built on that lesson were not building models of the world. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Sutton), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Sutton).*

**Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Sheikh.** Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates, who chairs MGX, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign AI fund. *The states · Chapter [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Tahnoon%20bin%20Zayed%20Al%20Nahyan).*

**Tan, Lip-Bu.** Chief executive of Intel, on whom rests Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s hope that half of the chips America uses will be made at home. *The chips and the machines · Chapter [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Tan).*

**Thompson, Neil.** Of MIT FutureTech, whose decomposition of language-model progress found that most of it came from buying more compute, and who priced halving a model’s remaining loss, its error at predicting text, at “20 times the world economy.” *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Thompson), [2](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-2?q=Thompson), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Thompson), [12](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-12?q=Thompson).*

**Tipton, Robert, Jr.** President of the DeSoto County NAACP, who swore a declaration in the NAACP’s Clean Air Act suit over the Southaven turbines. *The power and the places · Chapter [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Tipton).*

**Trump, Donald J.** President of the United States, who visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in May 2025, ordered every federal agency to stop using Anthropic’s products in 2026, and met Xi Jinping at Busan that October. *The states · Chapters [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Trump), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Trump), [13](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-13?q=Trump).*

**Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn.** Finance economist at Columbia, whose figures price the buildout in three chapters and who closed the Brookings panel chapter 11 quotes. *The money · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Van%20Nieuwerburgh), [10](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-10?q=Van%20Nieuwerburgh), [11](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-11?q=Van%20Nieuwerburgh).*

**Wang, Dan.** Author of *Breakneck* (2025), who covered the export controls from inside China for six years, and calls China an “engineering state” and the United States a “lawyerly society.” *The states · Chapters [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Wang), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Wang), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Wang), [8](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-8?q=Wang), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Wang).*

**Wei, C.C.** Chairman and chief executive of TSMC, who said that moving its production out of Taiwan was impossible. *The chips and the machines · Chapter [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Wei).*

**Witt, Stephen.** Author of *The Thinking Machine* (2025), on Jensen Huang and NVIDIA, who called NVIDIA’s market value “a giant, GDP-sized bet on the capabilities of this single sixty-one-year-old man.” *The chips and the machines · Chapters [5](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-5?q=Witt), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Witt), [14](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-14?q=Witt).*

**Wright, Chris.** Secretary of Energy, who in October 2025 directed the federal energy regulator, FERC, to take up the connection of large loads to the grid. *The power and the places · Chapter [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Wright).*

**Xi Jinping.** President of China, who called AI a strategic technology at a Politburo study session in 2018, and made a state visit to Washington in September 2026. *The states · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Xi%20Jinping), [7](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-7?q=Xi%20Jinping).*

**Zuckerberg, Mark.** Chief executive of Meta, who told the G20 ministers that Meta cannot find enough skilled tradespeople to build its datacenters. *The laboratories and the science · Chapters [1](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-1?q=Zuckerberg), [3](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-3?q=Zuckerberg), [4](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-4?q=Zuckerberg), [6](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-6?q=Zuckerberg), [9](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes/chapter-9?q=Zuckerberg).*

- [Campuses](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/ledger)
- [Tests](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/tests)
- [Scorecard](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/scorecard)
- [Data](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/data/releases)
- [Chapter by chapter](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/companion)
- [The record at a glance](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/observatory)
- [The machine](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/machine)
- [One campus, four futures](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/hyperion)
- [Glossary](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/glossary)
- [Sources](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/sources)
- [Notes](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/notes)
- [Where the book was wrong](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/corrections)
- [Where its sources were wrong](https://dryburgh.com/corrections?book=vol1)
- [The Paper](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/paper)
- [Consent](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/consent)
- [Who builds and pays](https://dryburgh.com/vol1/parties)

*The AI Compute Race: Five Races, One Machine* is a book by Lee S. Dryburgh, the first volume of THE COMPUTE ECONOMY, published by Dryburgh, an imprint of Contestra OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia; its record closes on 8 November 2026.

[About the book](https://dryburgh.com/vol1)[Tell me when it is out](https://dryburgh.com/vol1#notify)