In early 2022, the CIA knew that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. Exactly how they knew is unclear, for obvious reasons, but we know that they knew because they told President Biden, and he said it publicly. This was not an accident. The thinking was, that by Biden saying publicly that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine, Putin would realize that he had lost the element of surprise, and perhaps call off the invasion. You know, it didn't work, but it was worth a try. Had Putin been rational, he would have realized that an invasion of a Ukraine that was forewarned, was too risky.
During 2022, Xi Xinping told the Chinese military to be ready to take Taiwan by force within five years. This does not, of course, mean that they will try it in 2027. Nonetheless, it would be foolish to assume they will not. Putin had plenty of rational reasons not to invade Ukraine in 2022, and many people assumed his sabre rattling was just meant to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. I recall thinking such a thing, and I was incorrect. Putin had plenty of reason not to invade Ukraine, but he did anyway. Xi Xinping has plenty of reasons not to invade Taiwan, but he's told his military to get ready to do so by 2027, and he's been replacing most of the top military officials (the ones who could have enough internal clout to speak against the idea). It seems, at the very least, plausible that he may try it next year, just as he indicated.
If the CIA (which publicly says no such thing) has privately told the President (first Biden and now Trump) that China is probably (or even possibly) going to attack Taiwan in 2027, what might they do with that information?
Well, one possibility is that they would want to get the economy ready to live without chips (or anything else) from Taiwan, for a matter of years. Even if China's invasion plans go very poorly, it is likely that a hot war there would shut down semiconductor manufacturing for years. Again, that's even if China fails at their plans; if they succeed in taking Taiwan it would be even worse. Not even fabs in South Korea or Japan are obviously safe if a shooting war erupts in east Asia. Even if we build the fabs to make the chips ourselves, that would take a few years as well (though doubtless it would happen somewhat faster than in peacetime). Biden tried to jumpstart fab construction in the U.S., but it's not going as quickly as hoped.
Now, given that Biden's attempt at dissuading Putin (by publicly stating 'we know what you're up to') did not work, we can expect a different response this time. The opposite response, perhaps. Instead of stating it openly, prepare for it secretly. That means, stockpile as much as you possibly can.
What would you do if you thought your supply of something was going to be cut off for years? You would order several years' worth of it. But, wouldn't that attract attention? Wouldn't that tip off China to what we were doing?
It should be mentioned here that Putin thought that the dependence of the West on Russian oil would prevent it from supporting Ukraine in any meaningful way. Xi Xinping doesn't sell oil to the West, but he sells a lot of other things. He may well believe that the West will not be willing to fight his takeover of Taiwan, simply because of that fact. If he sees that the West is stockpiling in order to get ready for a long fight, he might decide he needs to invade early, before our stockpiles are accumulated. So, it would be well if you pretended that you were doing something other than stockpiling.
Like, say, blowing it all on a new technology that can justify any amount of purchasing.
For several years now, the largest and most profitable tech companies in America have been hoovering up all of the GPUs and memory chips they can afford, and then issuing debt to get more. On the other hand, while many data centers are announced, the actual buildout has been sluggish. Many people have pointed out that we don't currently even have enough power or water to run so many data centers. An analyst named Ed Zitron has pointed out that many of the Nvidia GPUs bought last year are not accounted for anywhere; they were bought, but nowhere close to enough data centers have been brought online to use them, and in normal times they will be obsolete before the buildings (and the racks and other infrastructure inside those buildings) is ready for them. None of it makes any sense, if what they are doing is normal peacetime activity.
This is exactly what we might expect if they were actually stockpiling, and preparing for wartime. GPUs or memory chips that are a couple years old may be obsolete in normal times, but if the fabs in Taiwan are blown up or mothballed or otherwise out of commision, those "obsolete" chips would instead be worth their weight in gold, because no new chips would be coming to make them obsolete (for years, anyway). Building the actual buildings (and the power plants and water plants) would be less urgent than getting the chips, now, while it is still possible.
The White House could not, of course, tell every corporate CEO that a war was coming. But, he might tell a couple close friends like Larry Ellison of Oracle and Elon Musk of SpaceX, a couple tech CEOs of Taiwanese ancestry like Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Lisa Su of AMD, and a couple other CEOs of the very biggest companies like Google and Microsoft.
It should be noted that Apple, the only tech giant that isn't blowing scads of money allegedly on AI, is also the only one which buys enough chips (for computers and smartphones and so on) to not need a cover story. They can stockpile in broad daylight, since they have always been buying chips in large quantities. If they are buying more than they need, it's not so difficult for them to hide that fact, and they don't need to pretend it's for AI data centers.
Starting and stopping a trade war with China a couple times, is annoying, but also a good way to tell every other business in America "consider what you would do if you could not buy from China", without telling them that a war was coming.
Of course, it could be instead that every big tech company in America has decided to blow incredibly large amounts of capital on physical hardware, when that wasn't a thing they've ever done before. Then, for some reason maybe they decided not to actually build the datacenters very fast, and shrug off the market's distinct lack of enthusiasm for the AI slop that they are using to justify it all. It could always be stupidity instead of conspiracy. But, a wise person would at least consider the possibility of a war with China, which will more or less cut off all trade with east Asia for a couple years at least.
I don't know if this is what really is happening, but if it is, I believe it is time for them to drop the pose. 2027 is only a few months away, and there are still a lot of businesses that have not seriously considered what they would do if all trade between the West and China stops for a few years (maybe longer). We should not expect governments to always be honest with us, however. All governments lie, and especially so in wartime (or the runup to it). It may not happen; maybe you can rely on buying from China indefinitely. But you wouldn't want to bet your future on it. Plan accordingly.