MLCC

cynic_and_wild

The buildout is now debt-financed. So which capex has a paying customer on the other side? u/filingdelta’s post is the best thing on this sub this week: Q3 capex at the big four roughly doubled to \~$202bn, exceeded operating cash flow by \~$27bn, and the gap got filled with $52.5bn of new bonds, preferred and forward equity in two weeks. If that’s right, the buildout is now sensitive to rates, power and permits in a way it wasn’t when it was funded from cash. Everyone treats hyperscaler capex as a cost. One of the four books revenue from selling the thing it builds. On its July 22 call Alphabet said it delivered TPU systems to customers’ own data centers and recorded revenue from those sales for the first time. On Oct 28 it said TPU sales were a meaningful contributor to Cloud growth in Q3 (call transcript). The buyers are named: Anthropic (up to one million TPUs, Oct 2025; a further multi-gigawatt deal with Google and Broadcom from 2027, Sept 2026), Meta (a multibillion rental deal reported in March 2026), and OpenAI, which Bloomberg reported on Oct 27–28 plans to buy Google’s chips — no deal confirmed, both sides declined comment. In May Bloomberg reported Google’s own researchers were queueing behind outside customers for capacity. The market did not care. Alphabet fell about 10% on Oct 28 because it held 2026 capex flat and signalled a big increase in 2027 (CNBC). But note what it did this week: closed Thursday at $282.57, down 0.4% on the week, while Nvidia fell 15%. Two honest complications. TPU revenue isn’t broken out, so “meaningful” is all we have. And Broadcom sells complete TPU racks directly to Anthropic under a $21bn order, so part of “Google sells TPUs” is really “Broadcom sells TPUs.” The other name I’d put next to this is not in the US. Murata (Tokyo: 6981) makes the ceramic capacitors that sit on every AI server board — industry write-ups citing Murata’s own briefings put it at roughly 30,000 per GB300 server. On Oct 30 it reported quarterly revenue of ¥588.5bn, up 21%, with operating margin at 25.1% versus 19.6% the prior quarter, raised its full-year outlook, and announced \~¥1tn of MLCC capacity spend through FY2030 with a plan to double MLCC sales. The stock closed Friday at ¥4,831: down 24% this week, down 44% this month -- seems quite exotic as a conviction. Murata doesn’t care whether GPUs or TPUs win. It’s a parts-count bet. The caveat is the one that always applies to parts: ¥1tn of new capacity is exactly what ends a shortage, and Murata’s own president said in July that components are not what’s holding the buildout back. Question: if the buildout is now financed with 6–7% paper, is the better exposure the supplier that gets paid regardless of which chip wins, or is “architecture-agnostic” just a slower way to be wrong? Not advice. Long GOOGL, small position in Murata.