Engines & Margins

Science & Technology

The infrastructure, engineering, and economics behind modern technology.

Engines & Margins covers the physical systems powering AI and modern technology — chips, power, cooling, networks, and the businesses that build and finance them.

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Featured video

The $7 Trillion Machine Behind AI

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Editorial promise

Built on sourcing, not hype

  • Claims are sourced where a reliable primary source exists, and clearly flagged for verification where one doesn't.
  • No fabricated statistics, credentials, testimonials, or partnerships — see our editorial policy.
  • Interactive tools use transparent, documented formulas — not black-box estimates.

Latest analysis

Recent articles

Infrastructure9 min read

Liquid Cooling for AI Data Centers: Why Air Cooling Hit Its Limit

Why AI data centers are switching to liquid cooling: how rack power rose from 8 kW to 120 kW, why water moves heat so much better than air, and how direct-to-chip and immersion cooling compare on density and cost.

  • liquid cooling
  • data center cooling
  • rack density
  • AI infrastructure
  • direct-to-chip
  • immersion cooling
Infrastructure7 min read

What Is HBM? Why High-Bandwidth Memory Is AI's Real Bottleneck

HBM explained: how stacked high-bandwidth memory works, where figures like 819 GB/s and 1.2 TB/s come from, what the 18.75× HBM-vs-DDR5 comparison really measures, and why memory limits AI hardware.

  • HBM
  • high-bandwidth memory
  • AI infrastructure
  • semiconductors
  • DDR5
Business6 min read

Nvidia AI Chip Packaging: How HBM and TSMC CoWoS Work

Understand HBM memory, TSMC CoWoS advanced packaging, and why making compute dies is only one step in delivering Nvidia AI accelerators.

  • AI infrastructure
  • semiconductors
  • advanced packaging
  • HBM
  • TSMC
  • Nvidia

Interactive tools

Do the math yourself

AI Data Center Power & Cost Calculator

Estimate the electricity load and cost of an AI GPU cluster from GPU count, power draw, PUE, and utilization.

Data Center Revenue & Capacity Calculator

Explore illustrative data-center revenue from sellable capacity, utilization, price per kilowatt, and interconnection revenue.

Data Center Rack Density & Cooling Calculator

Explore rack power density, estimated IT heat output, facility electricity use, and electricity cost in an illustrative scenario.