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Up the Stack: How AI’s Escape From the Commodity Trap Risks Enterprise Lock-in

Arvind Narayanan · 9 Jul 2026

Read the piece on normaltech.ai ↗

3 korrents from this piece ↓

Arvind Narayanan did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    Infrastructure providers rarely capture the value they create.

    Their wordsFirst, infrastructure providers rarely capture the value they create.

  2. Our reading

    AI, in its current hyperscaler/infrastructure form, risks falling into the same commodity trap that has affected past infrastructure industries.

    Their wordsWe believe that AI, at least in its current hyperscaler form, risks falling into the same commodity trap that has bedeviled so many previous infrastructure builders.

  3. Our reading

    AI will become an essential part of most knowledge work and will be as transformative as the industrial revolution.

    Their wordsOver the long run, we expect that AI will be an essential part of most knowledge work, and that the technology will be as transformative as the industrial revolution.

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