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Thursday, October 1, 2026

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Convequity on X

Renting AI capacity protects Microsoft ($MSFT) if the AI buildout busts. It leaves Microsoft exposed if compute gets scarce. On Q2 2026 data, Microsoft's implicit and off-balance-sheet infrastructure commitments were 17 times its headline borrowings according to our AI Bubble Barometer. 1. Microsoft signs a multi-year deal to rent capacity. The partner, a specialist AI cloud such as $IREN or Nebius ($NBIS), typically raises the capital, builds the site, buys the chips and owns the assets. 2. Construction risk, the risk that the GPUs lose value, and most of the financing sit with that partner and its lenders. 3. Microsoft swaps capital spending today for rental payments later. Compare Alphabet ($GOOGL) at 10.2 times. Almost all of its off-book commitments are purchase orders, $811bn of them, for chips and equipment Google will own. We read Microsoft's choice as less than full confidence in the buildout, and Google's as the opposite. In our view the market underweights the risk that compute gets scarce. The partners own any capacity beyond their Microsoft contracts and can sell it to whoever pays more. Microsoft would then have to wait or pay up, as it owns fewer of the data centres and chips it uses. That means higher compute costs and tighter margins. On our reading, Microsoft wins if AI demand falls short, because its partners carry most of the asset risk. If compute gets scarce, Microsoft loses, because renting gives it less control of supply, and Google wins because it will own the chips it ordered.

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Not So Fast

Entravision, the portfolio’s largest position, fell more than 40% from its highs as Q3 returns dropped to 37.8% YTD.

EVC $682M
The Mikro Kap 2 clicks
ELME · long

Elme Communities

Elme Communities, a REIT, is nearing the end of a long liquidation process.

ELME $155M
Value Investors Club

Zentek Research Note

Zentek shipped its first ZenGUARD air-filter order to a Canadian federal facility as its Albany graphite PEA confirmed a US$3.85 billion…

ZTEKF $63M
Atrium Research - Equity Research 2 clicks

The Next Consumer is a Computer

Meta’s Muse illustrates how persistent AI agents shift compute from per-query to per-user, driving heavier GPU, CPU and memory demand.

META $1.8TNVDA $5.5T
SixSigmaCapital: Navigating the Financial Markets 6 clicks

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