SemiAnalysis
Ranked 3 of 26 newsletters by recommenders
Recommended for deep, detailed analysis of the semiconductor and AI chip industry, with useful information and access to people. Critics call its predictions speculative and its work hype-driven.
Recommended for deep, detailed analysis of the semiconductor and AI chip industry, with useful information and access to people. Critics call its predictions speculative and its work hype-driven.
32 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Thorough, detailed industry analysis
“So much detail from financial to optical linking to build various data flow topologies”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race” “analysis of a trillion dollar industry being conducted at a world-class level”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “They have some of the best publicly available analysis on these topics.”
Comment from 29 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Copilot code review will start consuming GitHub Actions minutes” - Comment from 27 Jul 2026 in “Kimi-K3 Releases on HuggingFace 6/27”
- Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?”
Credible, knowledgeable writers
“semianalysis is the only major, decent one in my experience”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “A 3rd World Embedded Engineer Responds to "RISC-V They Should Have Known Better"” “Semianalysis is great, def recommend following”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race” “who really know what they are talking about”
Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News Useful information and insider access
“Semianalysis seem to have useful information but increasingly crazy extrapolations of trends and future predictions.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “the Semianalysis + Dwarkesh side of reporting still does surface interesting information”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “has amazing insight and access to people”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Dario Amodei – "We are near the end of the exponential"” Clear explanations of complex topics
“Semi Analysis has some great articles explaining why.”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “Google open-sources TorchTPU, a native PyTorch back end for TPUs” “did a great job explaining part of it”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Maryland citizens hit with $2B power grid upgrade for out-of-state AI”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hype-driven and biased toward markets
“Semianalysis is an AI hype organisation, not a serious, unbiased semiconductor reviewer/journalist”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “Dylan Patel is the Jim Cramer of industry reporting for this sector”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “AI Labs Are Solving the Power Problem” “overzealous peddlers and hacks on some market pumping mission”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Nvidia's Risky Business” - Comment from 1 May 2026 in “GitHub Copilot code review will start consuming GitHub Actions minutes”
Speculative predictions often prove wrong
“Semianalysis seem to have useful information but increasingly crazy extrapolations of trends and future predictions.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “speculation from a semiconductor website. that's incredibly likely to be wrong”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “SpaceX S-1” Founder's reliability questioned
“The founder is well-known in the hardware circle to be a black-market information trader.”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell” “Not one person in the industry consider them reliable/technically sound.”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “AWS Trainium3 Deep Dive – A Potential Challenger Approaching” “Really makes me wonder about anything else I've read on Semianalysis.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “AI Labs Are Solving the Power Problem”
Other newsletters people recommend
The four most recommended other newsletters, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ed Zitron newsletter | 46 | 42 | 52% | 12 | — | — |
| Simon Willison's blog | 21 | 2 | 91% | 9 | — | Approved |
| SemiAnalysisThis page | 20 | 12 | 63% | 8 | — | — |
| acoup.blog | 19 | 0 | 100% | 10 | — | Approved |
| gwern.net | 19 | 3 | 86% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
28 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Semi Analysis has some great articles explaining why.”
“That was a delightfully thorough analysis”
“I've seen the paid subscriber sections and it's nothing groundbreaking. I wouldn't/don't pay for it.”
“Semianalysis seem to have useful information but increasingly crazy extrapolations of trends and future predictions.”
“It is about the motivation behind doing something.”
“the Semianalysis + Dwarkesh side of reporting still does surface interesting information”
“Semianalysis is an AI hype organisation, not a serious, unbiased semiconductor reviewer/journalist”
“The founder is well-known in the hardware circle to be a black-market information trader.”
“All their benchmarks are flawed.”
“analysis of a trillion dollar industry being conducted at a world-class level”
“semianalysis is the only major, decent one in my experience”
“overzealous peddlers and hacks on some market pumping mission”
“they have various paid options, mostly targeting investors with information and tools”
“SemiAnalysis is also good in the higher tier.”
“The SemiAnalysis piece on this is long but very much worth reading”
“speculation from a semiconductor website. that's incredibly likely to be wrong”
“Plenty of analysis on this point, the inputs are not secret. Check out Semianalysis for example.”
“did a great job explaining part of it”
“They never go against the grain.”
“They have some of the best publicly available analysis on these topics.”
“has amazing insight and access to people”
“Dylan Patel is the Jim Cramer of industry reporting for this sector”
“Really makes me wonder about anything else I've read on Semianalysis.”
“Not one person in the industry consider them reliable/technically sound.”
“It certainly cuts through the shallow takes that get thrown around constantly.”
“So much detail from financial to optical linking to build various data flow topologies”
“Semianalysis is great, def recommend following”
“who really know what they are talking about”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.