Carlo CocuzziAI Expert, Pod Cast Host, Real Estate Investor and Funding Specialist

What the Strait of Hormuz Means for AI, Chips, and Data Centers? | MOONSHOTS

1 May 2026 · 0 min

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In this segment of the Moonshots discussion, the speakers examine how geopolitical tensions around the Strait of Hormuz could cascade into severe supply chain disruptions for AI and semiconductor infrastructure. They highlight four critical resource vulnerabilities: aluminum, oil, natural gas, and helium. A specific focus is placed on helium shortages affecting South Korean memory‑chip fabs, prompting calls for new helium extraction ventures. They also note Taiwan’s extreme reliance on natural gas—only about 11 days of reserves—making its semiconductor sector highly susceptible to a prolonged blockade of gas shipments. Overall, the conversation frames the Strait of Hormuz as a single‑point failure risk that could cripple AI data‑center build‑outs and chip manufacturing worldwide.

The straits are going to impact AI infrastructure buildouts to a large degree, driving aluminum shortages, global oil shortage, natural gas, helium.
Yeah, I've seen scattered reports of shortages of certain memory chip facilities in South Korea facing multi-week deadlines to resolve their, their helium shortages before they're unable to manufacture memory chips. It's high time to start helium startups. Having this global geopolitical dependency on one narrow, volatile geographic region is completely unacceptable.
There is helium globally. It just needs to be put into manufacturing. It's actually pretty, pretty abundant in our universe. We just need a better way of harvesting it. Natural gas supply. Taiwan is completely dependent on natural gas. The stat I read is that Taiwan has 11 days of natural gas reserves. A prolonged blockade is going to cripple Taiwan semiconductor industry. So that is even a bigger bigger concern for me.
For me, this Iran war is not really just an oil shock, it's a system shock. There's two that struck me. One is aviation bottlenecks. Europe imports 30 to 40% of its jet fuel, and half of that comes from the Middle East. And the second, which is really the big tragedy in my mind, is food inflation. Something like 30% of the global fertilizer supply passes through the Straits of Hormuz. So this is a huge systems problem. I think it's going to accelerate deglobalization because people will not want to be, want to be dependent on these overall supply chains going forward. So there's a silver lining, but it's a down to the streamlining.