Provenance
This standalone page was migrated from the February 2026 compendium corpus.
Infrastructure chokepoints arise where built systems — digital networks, power grids, semiconductor packaging facilities — are geographically or operationally concentrated in ways that create systemic vulnerability. These are less visible than geographic or material chokepoints but can be equally disruptive.
Undersea Cable Infrastructure (UCI)
The channel identifies UCI (Undersea Cable Infrastructure) as one of the breakable global systems in its early framework articulation, but treats it as a glossary item rather than a fully developed analytical category. This is a significant gap.
Approximately 95-97% of intercontinental data traffic travels through undersea fiber optic cables. These cables are physically vulnerable to anchor strikes, seismic events, and deliberate sabotage. The 2023-2024 period saw multiple suspicious cable cuts in Northern Europe (Baltic Sea) that were investigated as potential Russian sabotage. The cable network is geographically concentrated at landing points — a small number of coastal locations where dozens of cables come ashore together. Damage at these landing points could disable communications across entire regions.
The investment implications are in cable system operators (SubCom, Alcatel Submarine Networks, NEC), cable protection and monitoring technology, and the emerging field of satellite-based redundancy (Starlink, Project Kuiper). However, the channel does not develop these into investable theses.
Data Center Power Demand
The AI-driven explosion in data center construction has created a new infrastructure chokepoint: power supply. A single large-scale AI training cluster can consume 100-300 MW of power — equivalent to a small city. Data center power demand in the U.S. is projected to more than double between 2024 and 2030.
This creates geographic constraints: data centers cluster near reliable power sources, which means specific regions (Northern Virginia, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the Nordics) become concentrated nodes of digital infrastructure. Power grid capacity becomes a binding constraint on AI development. The channel references the Quebec hydro example — Canada’s hydroelectric capacity as a bargaining chip in North American energy negotiations — but does not systematically develop the data-center-power nexus.
Power Grid Interdependencies
The channel mentions power grid vulnerabilities in the context of energy security but does not treat them as a distinct chokepoint category. The North American grid’s interconnection means that disruption in one region cascades. The European grid faces similar challenges, compounded by the shift from dispatchable generation (natural gas, nuclear) to intermittent renewables (wind, solar) that require massive grid storage and transmission buildout.
Semiconductor Packaging Geography
Semiconductor packaging — the process of assembling tested chips into functional modules — is a critical bottleneck that the channel identifies correctly in the Nexperia episode and subsequent discussions.
The OSAT (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test) market concentration is significant:
| Company | Headquarters | Global Market Share |
|---|---|---|
| ASE | Taiwan | 44.6% |
| Amkor | U.S./Global | 15.2% |
| JCET | China | 12.0% |
China commands approximately 30% of the advanced packaging market specifically. Malaysia holds 13% of the total packaging market and is a crucial back-end hub. Intel is investing $7 billion-plus to expand advanced packaging capacity in Malaysia.
The Nexperia/Newport Wafer Fab case illustrates how even legacy fabs and packaging facilities are now treated as sovereignty assets. In 2021, Nexperia (a Dutch company 100% owned by China’s Wingtech) acquired Newport Wafer Fab, the UK’s largest fab. In November 2022, the UK government ordered divestiture under the National Security and Investment Act, following explicit U.S. Congressional pressure despite the absence of direct CFIUS jurisdiction. This case demonstrates that the “sovereignty perimeter” for semiconductor infrastructure extends beyond leading-edge fabrication to include packaging, testing, and even legacy node production.
The investment implication is that packaging companies — particularly those outside China’s orbit — hold strategic value disproportionate to their financial scale. Advanced packaging (CoWoS, HBM assembly) is the new battleground where Taiwan, Malaysia, and the U.S. play pivotal roles.