Most AI content today feels flat.
We read threads.
We skim blog posts.
We copy prompts.
But very rarely do we actually see how AI systems work.
Why I’m starting this series
As engineers, our edge is not just using tools.
It’s understanding systems.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about this:
Are we still thinking deeply about what we’re building…
or just orchestrating tools we don’t fully understand?
That’s where this idea came from.
Introducing: AI Visual Series
I’m starting a series of interactive visual explainers to break down AI concepts:
- infrastructure
- systems
- tradeoffs
- bottlenecks
- real-world constraints
Not with walls of text…
But with visuals you can explore and interact with.
👉 You can explore the series here
The goal isn’t about simplifying AI.
It’s about making complex systems intuitive through visuals.
Because once you see something you think differently about it.
Without further delay, let's explore the first post in this series.
AI Hardware, Explained Visually
We talk about AI like it’s software.
Prompts. Models. APIs.
But modern AI doesn’t run on “code”.
It runs on a massive physical stack of hardware.
1. The AI hardware stack
A modern AI system isn’t just a server.
It’s a layered system:
- GPU / accelerator
- CPU
- high-bandwidth memory (HBM)
- advanced packaging
- networking
- storage
- power
- cooling
Each layer matters.
Each layer can break.
2. A global system
What surprised me most:
This stack is not built in one place.
- Design → United States
- Fabrication → Taiwan
- Memory → South Korea
- Lithography → Netherlands
- Materials → Japan
- Assembly + deployment → China + Southeast Asia
No single country controls the full system.
3. Where things actually break
We used to think scaling AI meant just adding more GPUs
But that’s no longer true.
The real bottlenecks are now:
- HBM memory
- advanced packaging
- networking
- power availability
- cooling
And here’s the counterintuitive part:
Compute itself is no longer the main constraint.
The key takeaway
The more I dig into AI…
The less it feels like software engineering.
And the more it feels like:
- distributed systems
- hardware engineering
- energy infrastructure
All at once.
Why this matters for us
If you’re building with AI today:
- you’re sitting on top of this entire stack
- you’re affected by its constraints
- you’re making decisions that depend on it
Understanding it, even at a high level, changes how you think.
You can play around with the interactive visuals here
What’s next in the series
I’ll keep building these visual explainers around:
- evolution of AI chips
- cost of a prompt
- model capability vs compute
- open vs closed AI ecosystems
Curious to hear:
👉 what AI concepts would you like to see visualized next?
Top comments (5)
Didn't realize how much AI is "hardware", although I guess it makes sense - coz it's trying to emulate neural networks!
P.S. your "visualization" links are leading to a Vercel login page - is that intentional?
Thanks for pointing this out leob!
I accidentally shared the link to the preview deployment url that is protected. I now updated the post with the actual production domain that is publicly accessible.
It is fixed now.
Works now, looks cool, I'm gonna view it!
Awesome! Thanks for confirming it works.
Let me know what you think. I intend to grow the series over time :)
Yeah the notion that AI is probably more "hardware" than "software", and is aiming to make us software engineers/developers "redundant" (well that's what some people think, although it's clearly not as simple as that) is somewhat "humbling" lol ...
Well, joking of course - AI is both hardware and software, but more importantly it's it's own unique "thing" ;-)