Roundup: Inference Costs, China Robots, Labor Markets, Credit Spreads, etc.

AI Inference Costs Are Coming DueWhat’s happeningAMD is buying Taalas for the latter's inference technology. Inference is expensive, scale is capital intensive, and someone has to pay for the power, chips, and data centers. SourcesAMD to Acquire Taalas for AI Inference Chips in Data Center PushDeepSeek Plans ‘Significant’ Price Increase for AI Services2. It has real shipments, strong margins, and plans to spend heavily on humanoid robots and embodied AI. Why it mattersThis looks like the familiar China playbook: subsidized scale, vertical integration, lower hardware costs, then a fight over software and export controls.