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Logic, Memory, Power Glossary

The physical triad behind AI scaling: compute logic, memory capacity/bandwidth, and power delivery. The antidote to treating AI as weightless software.

Logic, Memory, Power is the physical triad behind AI scaling.

The phrase comes into the Dictionary through Dylan Patel’s SemiAnalysis account of AI-compute bottlenecks. Logic means the chips and accelerator architectures that perform the operations. Memory means the capacity and bandwidth that let models hold parameters, context, KV cache, and intermediate state. Power means the electricity, grid connections, turbines, cooling systems, and data-center infrastructure required to make the first two useful at scale.

The triad is useful because it punctures frictionless software talk. A model is not merely “in the cloud.” It is running through logic, memory, and power — each with its own supply chain, capital cycle, and physical limit.

For sovereign AI, the lesson is double. Local systems must respect the triad because they are constrained by it. Frontier systems must respect it because they are trying to bend the industrial world around it.

See also

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