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AI Inference & Agent Report

Every AI model is paid for twice: once to train it, and forever after to run it. Training was the headline. Inference is the bill that never stops — and every time an agent replaces a click, that bill multiplies. The industry just signed up to run billions of digital workers on infrastructure that turns most of its electricity into heat.<br><br>The tell is already public: token prices falling, compute spending rising, margins moving the wrong way. This report explains why — and what ends it.<br><br>Inside: why agent economics break on electron-based inference; where the true cost of a token comes from (heat and conversion, not intelligence); how logic that runs on light rewrites cost-per-inference; and who is positioned to own the infrastructure of the agent era.<br><br>This isn't a prompt guide or an AI hype piece. It's an industry map for the largest infrastructure buildout in computing history — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Clean Compute Centers

Compute has become the world's hungriest tenant. Data centers now negotiate for rivers, strain regional grids, and arrive in communities as billion-dollar neighbors that bring heat, noise, and remarkably few jobs. Cities have started saying no — moratoriums, zoning fights, canceled deals — because the current model asks everything of a place and leaves little behind.<br>The tell is the resistance itself: demand for compute at record highs while the buildings that supply it get harder to build. When your growth industry can't get permitted, the model is the problem — not the demand.<br>Inside: why the electron-based data center hit its social and physical ceiling at the same time; what the moratorium wave signals about where compute gets built next; how facilities that run on light — a fraction of the power, no cooling water, solar-capable — rewrite the economics of hosting compute; and who gets to own it, including the communities themselves.<br>This isn't a real estate pitch. It's an industry map for compute's next landlord — written for builders who want to see it first.<br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and

Crypto Mining

Every four years, Bitcoin cuts mining rewards in half — and every four years, the machines have gotten faster and cheaper to compensate. That era is ending. The transistor is running out of physics, and mining is about to face its first halving with no faster chip coming.<br><br>The public miners are already telling you this in their balance sheets — if you know where to look. This report shows you where.<br><br>Inside: why ASIC economics break at the next halving; what the big miners' sudden AI pivots really signal; how computing with light instead of electricity rewrites the cost of a hash; and who is positioned to own the transition.<br><br>This isn't a coin-picking guide. It's an industry map for the largest equipment turnover in mining history — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Defense, Drones & Aerospace

Modern conflict is a mathematics of speed: whoever closes the loop from detection to decision first, wins. Yet the deciding systems still run on electronics that must be cooled, shielded, and powered — a burden measured in weight, and weight is the enemy of everything that flies. Meanwhile, a thousand-dollar drone routinely defeats a million-dollar answer.<br>The tell is procurement itself: record defense budgets, while the systems dominating headlines come from startups that didn't exist a decade ago. The primes are being lapped by the garage.<br>Inside: why the detection-to-decision loop decides the rest; how the drone cost curve rewrites defense economics from the bottom up; what light-speed logic — lighter, cooler, harder to jam — changes about what flies and what decides; and who is positioned to own the next defense stack.<br><br>This isn't a war forecast. It's an industry map for the fastest procurement shift in generations — written for builders who want to see it first.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Energy & Photonic Solar

For the first time in a generation, electricity demand is rising faster than the grid can grow — and the culprit is computing. Utilities are delaying retirements, restarting old plants, and quoting years-long waits for new connections.<br>The tell is the absurdity at both ends: record solar capacity gets curtailed — switched off for lack of somewhere to go — while data centers a state away sign deals for gas and coal. The energy is there. The architecture connecting it to demand isn't.<br>Inside: why compute's demand shock breaks the grid's planning model; what curtailment reveals about stranded energy value; how light-native computing — a fraction of the draw, solar-capable, sited where the sun is — turns stranded energy into the industry's cheapest asset; and who owns the meeting point of light-made power and light-run compute.<br><br>This isn't a green pledge. It's an industry map for energy's collision with compute — written for builders who want to see it first.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Gaming & Interactive Media

Gaming is the largest entertainment industry on earth, and its ceiling is physical. Every player knows the enemy: lag. Every studio knows the compromise: worlds shrunk, physics faked, player counts capped — not for lack of imagination, but because the infrastructure underneath converts, heats, and waits.<br>The tell is where the money goes: studios spend fortunes on servers and still ship games that stutter, while cloud gaming keeps stalling on the same problem — the speed of light is fine; everything electrons touch is not.<br><br>Inside: why real-time worlds break on electron-based infrastructure; what cloud gaming's false starts reveal about where the value sits; how light-speed logic changes what a game can be — persistent worlds, true physics, crowds that don't cap; and who is positioned to own the studios, platforms, and venues of the light era.<br><br>This isn't a game review. It's an industry map for entertainment's next engine — written for builders who want to see it first.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Health & Biosensing

Medicine already trusts light with your life: the clip on your finger reading oxygen, the scan reading tissue, the laser correcting vision. But sensing is only half the loop — light collects the signal, then hands it to slow, hot electronics somewhere else, and the answer arrives after the moment that mattered.<br>The tell is on every wrist: billions of wearables sold, yet most disease is still caught by appointment. Continuous sensing without continuous understanding is just a very expensive diary.<br>Inside: why the sense-to-diagnosis loop breaks at the processing layer; what the wearables boom reveals about where health value lands; how logic that runs on light — reading the body and understanding it in the same instant — changes what monitoring means; and who is positioned to own real-time medicine.<br><br>This isn't medical advice. It's an industry map for the decade health goes from episodic to continuous — written for builders who want to see it first.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Payments & Digital Money

Moving money is the world's most expensive simple task. A payment is just a message — yet it crosses more tollbooths than any message on earth: swipe fees, wire fees, FX spreads, settlement delays measured in days for a transaction that took milliseconds. And below a certain size, payments simply don't happen at all: the fee costs more than the money. An entire economy of small value sits unmoved.<br><br>The tell is everywhere: stablecoins settling billions while banks still batch overnight, and every platform on earth trying to become a wallet. The rails are being replaced. This report explains what replaces them.<br><br>Inside: why per-transaction economics trap the micropayment economy; what the stablecoin surge really signals about settlement; how light-speed logic collapses the cost of moving small money; and who is positioned to own the new rails.<br><br>This isn't a crypto trading guide. It's an industry map for the rebuild of how value moves — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does. Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Photonic Internet & Networking

The internet runs on light — until it matters. Data crosses oceans as photons, then stops at every router, switch, and server to become electricity: converted, processed, cooled, converted back. Billions of times a day, the fastest thing in the universe waits in line to become the slowest part of the network. That conversion tax is where the internet's cost, heat, and delay actually live. The tell is the buildout: record spending on fiber and data centers, yet congestion, energy strain, and latency complaints keep climbing. The industry is widening the highway while keeping the tollbooths.<br>Inside: why the conversion layer is the internet's real bottleneck; what the data center construction boom conceals about network economics; how networks that stay in light end-to-end restructure everything from the backbone to the last mile; and who is positioned to own the light-native internet.<br>This isn't a telecom forecast. It's an industry map for the internet's first true rebuild since the router — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does.<br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime

Robotics & Autonomy

A robot is a loop: sense, decide, act. Every machine ever built is limited by how fast that loop closes — and today it closes over electronics that are too hot, too heavy, and too power-hungry to put where the decisions are needed. So the industry compromises: intelligence stays in the cloud, the robot phones home, and autonomy fails precisely in the moments when milliseconds decide everything.<br>The tell is on stage: billions flowing into humanoid robots while the demos are still teleoperated. When the body outruns the brain, the brain is the bottleneck.<br>Inside: why the sense-decide-act loop breaks on electron-based compute; what the teleoperation era reveals about where robotics value will actually land; how light-speed logic — small enough, cool enough, fast enough to ride on the machine — changes what a robot can be; and who is positioned to own the autonomy stack.<br>This isn't a gadget preview. It's an industry map for machines that finally think at the speed they move — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does.<br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this r

Security & Trust

Every breach in history has the same root cause: digital security is built on secrets, and secrets can be copied. Keys leak. Passwords guess. Certificates forge. The industry's answer has been more secrets, rotated faster — a lock that ships with its own locksmith. Now AI has made it worse: the systems making decisions can't prove what they are, and the content they produce can't prove where it came from.<br>The tell is the spending: security budgets grow every year, and so do the breaches. When more money buys less trust, the foundation is the problem.<br><br>Inside: why secret-based security loses to anything that can copy; how identity anchored in physics — hardware that can't be cloned, randomness that can't be predicted — changes the game; why verifiable AI becomes a market of its own; and who is positioned to own trust in the light era.<br><br>This isn't a cybersecurity checklist. It's an industry map for security's move from secrets to physics — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.

Trading & Markets

No industry has ever paid more for less time. Firms string microwave towers across continents, dig straighter fiber, and pay premium rent to sit closer to the matching engine — all to buy microseconds. In modern markets, latency isn't a spec. It's the product.<br><br>But the arms race has hit a wall money can't move: every signal still stops to become electricity — switched, converted, cooled — millions of times per trade. When an industry is competing on cable geometry, the physics is finished.<br><br>Inside: why the latency race ends at the conversion layer; what colocation economics reveal about where the value really sits; how logic that runs on light restructures the stack from exchange to terminal; and who is positioned to own what comes after the microwave tower.<br>This isn't a trading strategy. It's an industry map for the next rebuild of market infrastructure — written for builders who want to see it before their industry does.<br><br>Your $197 purchase includes one full year of First Light General Membership: member letters and chat, monthly Q&A, and lifetime updates to this report as the numbers move.