Time To Take A Look At Silver -- February 17, 2026

Locator: 50001AG.

AI prompt: Besides the volatility in the price of silver there seems to be something else going on with silver. To what degree is AI infrastructure affecting demand for silver? 

Google Gemini: 

Quick! Does the US have / maintain a strategic silver reserve?

Why hasn't President Trump announced a US strategic silver reserve? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

If you're going to San Francisco .... we were so lucky to have "lived in" San Francisco when we did .... 

Link here.

Tracking Location Of LDCs In The US -- February 17, 2026

Locator: 50000LDCS.

Disclaimers: so many I can't list them all. See the blog's disclaimer. 

Meta plans to add ten LDCs each year on average for the next three years. 

META plans to add an additional 10 LDCs per year for the next three years. Sounds like a lot. Do the math.  30 / 4010 = 0.7% -- that's less than 1% of existing LDCs in the US right now. 

In the past year:

• Texas added: 60
• Ohio added: 16
• Louisiana added 9
• Total added in those three states in past year = 85.
• Why would California lose 22 LDCs in the past year?
• I can't verify those numbers, but if accurate --
• did some centers simply "age out"?
• did these California LDCs simply get too expensive (electricity costs)? 
• if so, did they simply re-position a lot of those chips to Texas? 

Various ways of looking at the addition:

• 10/85 = 12%
• 10/529 = 1.9%. 
• 10/614 = 1.6%

Texas (397),  Ohio (195), Louisiana (22) = 614 in those three states.

• an additional 10 LDCs per year / 614 now = 1.6%

Change in less than a year: 

State, April, 2025 --> February, 2026:

• Virginia (the DC area): 574 --> 570
• Texas: 337 --> 397
• California: 310 --> 288
• Illinois: 222 --> 210
• Ohio: 179 --> 195 
• New York State: 139 --> 134
• Georgia: 139 --> 207
• Oregon: 131 --> 123
• Florida: 121 --> 107 
• Washington State: 113 --> 108
• Louisiana: 13 --> 22

LDCs:

• Data Center Map, link here, April 16, 2025: the map is interactive and one of the most accessible sources of information regarding LDCs. One year ago, April 16, 2025:

February 17, 2026: currently the US has 4,010 large data centers.

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A Musical Interlude 

Link here. 

"We Will Rock You" -- Nvidia / META -- February 17, 2026

Locator: 49999LDCS.

Link here, December 2, 2023 -- Nvidia's Grace Hopper 200 chips. 

Now, take a look at the announcement today. Link here. Link here. 

META / Nvidia partnership: link here. By 2028 -- only three years from now --

• $600 billion;
• 30 large data centers;
• Nvidia chips but more to it than that; 
• Ohio, Texas, and Louisiana.

**************************
We Will Rock You -- We Are The Champions

Link here. 

Will "We" Run Out Of Oil Before We Quit Listening To Cher? LOL -- Believe -- February 17, 2026

Locator: 49998CHER.

The numbers haven't changed for years. Analysts still estimate that Saudi Arabia's oil will last another 60 - 70 years. 

Cher's Believe hit #1, Top of the Pops, October 25, 1998, and stayed at the top sport for seven weeks in the UK.  

1998: almost thirty years ago.

Link here. 

Large Data Centers, Superconductors And AI Factories -- A Random Observation -- February 17, 2026

Locator: 49997TECH.

Jargon: 

• AI factory = AI data center: link here. 
• AI factory: the term was coined by Jensen Huang
• AI factories often associated with Nvidia's GPUs 
• large data centers, link here.
• supercomputer, link here.

AI prompt: 

At one time we talked about AI factories, large data centers, and supercomputers. At one time, their differences seemed fairly clear cut, but more and more it seems that boundaries are blurring, especially between large data centers and supercomputers. They may each have separate functions but at the end of the day, aren't they really the same thing, just serving different purposes? Or is this too simplified?

Google Gemini: