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Rough Notes: Feb 12, 2026

A digest of recent Rough Notes

Rough Notes: Feb 12, 2026
Photo by nedimshoots / Unsplash

Here are recent rough notes from the site.

1.
China-US AI spending-deployment contrasts manufacturing focus

Striking differences wrt how China and US are spending on AI and deplaying it. Chna isn't spending nearly as heavily on frontier platforms, or on software for white collar workers, but is moving quickly to put tools into production in manufacturing, unlike the US.

https://aifrontiersmedia.substack.com/p/china-and-the-us-are-running-different

Feb 12 · Permalink →
2.
Healthcare Credit Spreads Widen Funding JPM AI Data Centers

Debt markets are complex and connected systems, so money that flows into tech capex must come from somewhere, and that has consequences. JPM points out today that healthcare credit spread are widening over energy (shorter duration), in part, they argue, because healthcare credit is a source of funds for AI data centers, given similar durations.

Feb 12 · Permalink →
3.
Reconciling Non-residential Specialized Trades Job Growth and Data Center Construction

Puzzling trends in non-residential specialized trades job growth over last twelve month, as FT Unhedged points out today. Despite data center center construction a growing factor in such trades, job growth decined in first half o flast year, only to acelerate sharply in second half. I'm guessing this was a denominator effect making what's happening, but it is notable.

Feb 12 · Permalink →
4.
Moody’s assigns Aaa rating Compass $500m ABS

Compass got a Aaa rating from Moody’s recently for $500m of its latest ABS. The full Moody's justification relies heavily on three high credit tenants making up 96% (!) of the ABS income. This, of course, is a wildly fragile structure given the inherent correlation. Important moment in data center financing, given this will become a template..

https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-Ratings-assigns-provisional-ratings-to-a-hyperscale-data-center-Rating-Action--PR_519083

Feb 12 · Permalink →