Machine Intelligence Infrastructure
The global physical supply chain behind artificial intelligence
Natural Earth 50m
About this map
Every time you ask an AI chatbot a question, you set in motion a chain of dependencies that spans 13 countries, more than 60 companies, and stretches from 380-million-year-old quartz deposits to fiber optic cables on the ocean floor.
This interactive map traces the complete physical supply chain behind AI — from mines, farms, and chemical plants, through chip factories and data centers, all the way to the AI services we use every day. Each dot is a critical stage. Each arc is a dependency. Click any node to learn its story.
How to read this map
- Play animates the entire supply chain building up layer by layer, from raw materials to AI — connections draw in as each new stage appears
- Layers organize the supply chain from bottom (raw materials, energy) to top (AI services) — toggle them individually or use the × to clear all
- Chokepoints (pulsing red rings) mark stages where a single company or region controls most of the global supply
- Follow the Chain traces a single material from origin to your screen — try "Sugar → GPUs" to see how sugarcane becomes part of an AI chip
- Chokepoint Atlas highlights different types of vulnerability — sole suppliers, geographic concentration, capacity bottlenecks, and trade war flashpoints
- Dotted terms in descriptions have explanations — hover over them
References
- Chris Miller, Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, Scribner, 2022
- International Energy Agency, Energy and AI, IEA, 2025
- OECD, Competition in the AI Infrastructure Stack, OECD, 2025
- OECD, Mapping the Semiconductor Value Chain, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers, 2024
- International Energy Agency, Global Critical Minerals Outlook, IEA, 2024
- Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), various reports and data, semiconductors.org
- Epoch AI, Nvidia B200 Cost Breakdown, 2025
- TrendForce, HBM market share and semiconductor industry reports, 2025–2026
- ASML, annual reports and investor presentations, 2024–2025
- TSMC, corporate social responsibility and earnings reports, 2023–2025
- Wood Mackenzie, Power Transformer Supply Outlook, 2025
- Vertiv, CoreWeave, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom — quarterly earnings reports and investor filings, 2025–2026
- TeleGeography, Submarine Cable Map, 2025
- U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries: Germanium, 2025
- John VerWey, Tracing the Emergence of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, CSET, 2024
- Pilz, Mahmood, Heim, AI Power Requirements, RAND, 2025
- Lennart Heim, US AI Diffusion Framework, RAND, 2025
- Scaling Limits to AI Chip Manufacturing, ICML, 2025
- Andre Barbe and Will Hunt, Preserving the Chokepoints, CSET, 2022
Acknowledgement
Inspired by aisupplychain.vercel.app.
Disclaimer
This is an educational project. All information has been researched and verified to the best of our ability, but errors may be present. The semiconductor supply chain evolves rapidly — market shares, capacity figures, and geopolitical conditions may have changed since publication. If you spot an inaccuracy, please let us know.
Suggested citation
GLOBAÏA (2026). Machine Intelligence Infrastructure: The Complete Supply Chain [interactive visualization]. globaia.org/explorations/ai/. Accessed .