The Electric Stack is the bundle of batteries, magnets, motors, power electronics and embedded compute that sits behind everything electric. China controls it. It's the new oil, I've argued, except you manufacture it and it gets better with time.
How the word moved
I took the term from Packy McCormick and Sam D'Amico in September 2025 and paired it with the Intelligence Stack. By October 2025 it had become my main US and China contrast: China centering the Electric Stack while the US champions the Compute Stack. Volts on one side, bits on the other.
In my words
"The Electric Stack is the new oil, except it's not extracted but manufactured, not depleted but improved, not geographically fixed but technologically determined."
from The Weekly Planet #5: Metabolics, 22 Sep 2025
Related
- Contradicts Prediction Stack - That's the American stack I set against it.
- Related Stack - It's one instance of a stack.
- Related Electrostate - The electrostate is the state that commands the Electric Stack.
- Related Metabolics - Bits and volts are the metabolics of the century.