Deep Dive: Where Value Accrues in the AI Stack

How should we think about AI in 2026? The stack we drew has six layers, from the bottom up: infrastructure, chips, data, models, execution, and application. Each layer has its own fulcrum...

How should we think about AI in 2026? Well, the first generation of internet companies had a map. It was called the OSI stack, a conceptual framework that demarcated where one layer of computing ended and the next began. Get the boundaries right, and great companies get built on top of them. Intel. Cisco. Broadcom. Oracle. The question now is what the conceptual stack for AI looks like. There will be a stack we will one day look back on and use to explain every company that mattered in this era. The opportunity is to draw it now, while the boundaries are still being set and the fulcrum…