Multipolarity

Jensen Huang is a visionary. He started Nvidia in 1993 based on a bet: that PC gaming would be big, and that it would need specialised processing for 3D rendering.
After building the company into a market leader, he made another huge bet in 2006: that the future would require parallel compute and that NVIDIA's GPUs would be ideal.
Huang had taken Nvidia from a start up to a company worth $13 billion in 2006. From there, he took it to being worth $360 billion in 2022. In October it was worth $5 trillion.
But then Jensen Huang had an affair. Apparently with a Chinese intelligence agency asset.
Why was it leaked? Who gains?
No evidence was provided to show the lady in question was indeed a Chinese intelligence asset. We don't mean there was no documentation or photographs or intel reports. There wasn't even an argument or explanation. No stated connections, no recruitment details. It was just asserted.
He is about as irreplaceable as it gets with CEOs. Yet Nvidia itself might be irreplaceable for the entire AI growth story and US tech stack.
As the entire US AI sector becomes bound up in the adventures of Jensen’s little feller, either they Huang together or Huang separately

This week, we touch down in a world on the edge of a crack-up. A steep tech selloff has exposed cracks in the AI investment bubble.
With PIMCO dumping half its AI debt ahead of the midterms and companies like Intel shedding nearly 30% in a day, we ask: is this a politically timed market move, the beginning of a bear market, or both?
Meanwhile, in Poland, Donald Tusk has attempted what looks very much like a judicial coup against the conservative president. As Europe's institutional capture rolls on one way, the finances of Europe continue to rot out.
Where will gravity reassert itself?
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This week: a tale of two essays.
Philip Pilkington is 'live from Belgrade' (almost), as he picks over the embers of the Serbian election. Is this really the picaresque rise of student protest it is made out to be? Or is the hand of Big Brussels somewhere in the background?
Meanwhile, Andrew Collingwood is revisiting Europe's recent attack of hubris. Why aren't the Europeans going to Mars? The answer is to do with, well, half a dozen things.
This is a pay week though. To get this episode in full, you'll have to tip us on Patreon or Substack. So do that! You can cancel any time.

A gutbuster blockbuster this week: Policy Tensor, our sometime Friend Of The Show , has been taking some serious flak online in recent weeks over his view that the Hormuz crisis is basically over.
Here, he speaks with Andrew Collingwood to clarify his position: an initial US victory has morphed into a broader loss, as Iran has recalibrated its strategy and returned to the fight with new systems.
This is a one-off two hour special edition, for the real heads.

Last time Albania blew up it was because the entire country had become embroiled in a Ponzi scheme, led by a gypsy soothsayer. That incident was generally classed as a Civil War, with breakaway militias staking out territory across the country, after about a fifth of the nation's supposed wealth evaporated overnight.
The leader of the opposition at the time? Edi Rama. Now, thirty years on, Edi Rama is still a made man in Albanian politics, and has been happily passing the Premiership back and forth with his rightist rivals ever since.
But almost overnight, it looks like this epochal politician may be gone for good. And Europe's most laggard state might be about to fully break with its post-Communist era - with all kinds of geopolitical implications.
Beyond the manifestations in France, this week we're taking a look at the European riots, from the back of the bus. France blowing up is important. Albania and Spain going at the same time? It's all a function of how much steam the global pressure cooker is generating, says Philip Pilkington.

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Multipolarity is a long-running alt-geopolitics brand, starring the economist Philip Pilkington, and the journalist Andrew Collingwood. In January 2023, we began with the slogan ‘Charting the rise of the multipolar world order’.

And we’ve hardly struggled for material since. Each week, our duo take three key stories affecting the global balance of power, and explain what each means for the coming multipolar era.

Increasingly, they’re joined by guests from across the spectrum: technologist Steve Hsu, journalist Malcom Kyeyune, strategic analyst Amerikanets, or academics like Warwick Powell and Glenn Diesen.

You can follow us on X, get into our lively Substack with the weekly Multipolarity Brief – a one-stop shop for deep analysis – and Philip Pilkington’s bimonthly column.
You can also get our premium subscriber-only podcast episodes on either Patreon or Substack.

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