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Asianometry
By Jon YTechnology
Asianometry episodes
- Why Gene Therapy is So ExpensiveGene therapies are the most expensive drugs in the world. And that is because producing a viral vector for "in vivo" gene therapy is arguably the most complicated process ever attempted at scale in biopharmaceuticals. In a prior video, I talked about the Chinese hamster's revolutionary impact on scaling antibody manufacturing. Today, let’s double-click on that (hate this phrase). In this video, we look at the history and complex manufacturing issues of viral vector gene therapy.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
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20 min - A Cult AI Computer’s Boom and BustStop me if you've heard this one before. A big computer costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Running a special programming language fine-tuned for big AI programs...and these programs can replace human experts, process military information, and do advanced math. Sounds familiar, no? Except this all happened four decades ago. In the 1980s, a new industry of cult AI computers emerged amidst an AI boom. The largest of which generated millions of dollars, before it all came crashing down. For today's video...some say it is the finest programming environment ever created...and that its users only gave it up when PC silicon got 50,000 times faster...all we know is...it's called a LISP machine!
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
46 min - What's Next for Southeast Asia's Data Center Boom?In May 2025, I rode along with the research firm SemiAnalysis on a datacenter information field trip in Malaysia and Singapore. They did not sponsor this video. I paid my own way. We drove out to actual data center sites. We went through some impressive security, and sat down with the operators to talk about their jobs and the industry. And to an extent, we went inside. I was allowed to photograph a few things. In other places, I can only do a quick and ugly sketch. The datacenter boom in Southeast Asia is hot. But challenges loom due to shortages in certain resources, as well as world geopolitics. In today's video, some first-hand notes and observations from the heart of the data center boom in Southeast Asia.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
21 min - Japan’s Recent Rice Price CrisisIn May 2025, rice prices in Japan hit 4,233 yen or about $30 per five kilograms - about twice as high as they were a year ago. Prices have gone up for over 15 weeks in a row. In response, the Japanese government released 600,000 tons of rice from its emergency food stockpiles - usually stored for natural disasters like earthquakes. But prices remain high. Supermarkets in Japan are announcing they will sell rice from other countries like South Korea and...even gasp America! Yes, I am talking about that most blasphemous of rice strains: Calrose. Japan is nearly 100% self sufficient in rice. On the surface, that is something to be proud of. But not so much when you consider the system built around that number. In today's video, we return to my favorite carb, and dive into Japan's ongoing rice price crisis.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
19 min - South Africa’s Crumbling, Corrupt Electricity MonopolyIn January 2025, ESKOM, South Africa's electricity monopoly, announced its first round of load-shedding in over ten months. Load shedding basically meaning rolling blackouts to prevent the grid from collapsing. 2024 had been a good year (relatively). Just 83 days of load-shedding. Not too bad after 332 days in 2023, and over 200 days of power cuts in 2022. ESKOM is one of South Africa's biggest companies. It is also arguably its most important. And it is in shambles. In this video, the story of a state-owned electricity monopoly that triggered an energy crisis.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
30 min - The Long, Hard End of the Chilean Nitrates IndustryFor decades, modern agriculture depended on fertilizing nitrates mined out of a South American desert. These mines were the world's only such sources of nitrates. So valuable that three countries went to war over them. These nitrate riches, monopolized by foreigners, were wiped away thanks to one of the most famous chemical processes in history. But it took longer than you think. In this video, the glorious nitrates mining boom, the countries who bled for it, the men who monopolized it, and the technologies that ended it.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
20 min - EUV Photoresists: The Next Generation?For nearly forty years, Chemically Amplified Resists or CARs (say it separately) dominated the semiconductor industry. But technological changes present opportunities for major industrial shifts. And the introduction of EUV is perhaps the biggest technological change in the past 10 years. EUV's rise has opened the door to a perhaps-revolutionary new photoresist, and two very interesting new players supporting them. In this video, we talk about the new metal oxide and dry resists, developed for the EUV era and beyond.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
23 min - How Did China's LFP Batteries Get So Cheap?Per Bloomberg, in 2024 lithium-ion battery pack prices fell 20% to $115 per kilowatt-hour. It is the biggest price cut since 2017. At these prices, it is cheaper to buy Chinese even with tariffs of 25%, 35% and perhaps 120%. Central to this trend are the price and technology developments going on in a specific type of battery: Lithium Ion Iron Phosphate or LFP. LFP batteries were once seen as cheap and low-end, suffering fundamental chemistry weaknesses. Leave it to China to engineer their way around such limits. In this video, one of the most revolutionary cost curves in energy history. China and the LFP.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
16 min - The Incredible Femtosecond LaserA femtosecond is one quadrillionth of a second. Or to put it another way. A femtosecond is one millionth of one billionth of a second. A femtosecond is to a second what a second is to 32 million years. There are more femtoseconds in a single second than there are hours passed since the Big Bang. Fact, eight times more. In a femtosecond, light travels just 300 nanometers. The femtosecond laser shoots pulses at femtosecond intervals. And that lets us observe fast-moving phenomena in physics, chemistry and more as they happen. And out in the real world, the femtosecond laser has been used in things as varied as nuclear fusion to semiconductors to LASIK. It sounds impossible. In today's video, the femtosecond laser breakthrough.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
20 min - That Time France Went "All Nuclear"In March 1974, the French government unveiled the Messmer plan. It called for a massive nuclear energy construction spree to raise nuclear's share of electricity generation in France from 8% to over 70% by 1985. The relevant phrase was "all nuclear" (le tout-nucléaire). The results were undeniable. Amidst an oil crisis in 1973, France relied on imported oil for 67% of its total energy needs. And nuclear delivered. By 2000, nuclear supplied nearly 80% of France's electricity and nearly 40% of its total energy. In this video, one of the greatest runs of nuclear energy construction in world history.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
30 min
About Asianometry
From the publisher's feed
Newsletter for the Asianometry channel. Studies on Asia - Financials, semiconductors, history, demography, development and other stuff.
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