Afraem Ahsan

Afraem AhsanSep 18, 2026

China's Power-Generating Glass Window glass that looks completely normal, lets in full natural light, but also generates electricity. This power-generating glass from China looks like regular glass, lets natural light in, and quietly produces electricity from sunlight. My take: → Traditional solar panels look like "solar panels" that makes them hard to use in a lot of buildings, especially urban architecture. This glass removes that aesthetic barrier entirely. → If this scales, every skyscraper, office building, even home window could become a potential energy generator affecting both real estate and energy industries. → Materials-science innovation like this coming out of China fits a pattern they're moving from heavy manufacturing toward heavier investment in advanced materials and clean-energy R&D. For anyone in real estate, construction, or clean energy, this kind of "invisible" energy product could be a big opportunity when energy generation blends seamlessly into building design, adoption speeds up dramatically. Do you think every building window will eventually be energy-generating?

Afraem AhsanSep 18, 2026

Firmus — AI Infrastructure ("AI Factories") in APAC A company that started with Bitcoin mining now has a valuation past $10.5B because it pivoted into AI data centers. Tasmania-based Firmus just raised a $2B strategic equity round led by NVIDIA and Coatue Management, with Blackstone and Jane Street also participating. Total funding now $3B+, plus a separate $10B debt facility. They're building large-scale GPU data centers (including a 170,000-GPU campus in Batam, Indonesia) for AI training and inference across APAC. My take: → Pivoting from Bitcoin mining to AI compute is becoming a recurring pattern the underlying infrastructure (power, cooling, GPUs) overlaps heavily, making it a natural transition. → Doubling valuation from $5.5B to $10.5B in just a few months (April to August) shows AI infrastructure demand is still far outpacing supply. → Having both equity and a $10B debt facility together shows AI data centers have become a mature asset class not just a venture bet, but a project-finance-grade investment. For anyone in AI infrastructure, Firmus is a great example having the courage to pivot and placing an infrastructure bet at the right time can sometimes create the biggest value. Do you think "picks and shovels" AI infrastructure companies will create more value than model companies over the next few years?

Afraem AhsanSep 18, 2026

Cohere — Enterprise AI, Series E Talks From $100M to $240M in annual revenue in under a year. Now targeting a $20B valuation raise. Toronto-based Cohere, founded 2019 by Aidan Gomez, Nick Frosst, and Ivan Zhang, is in advanced talks for a $2-3B Series E. Schwarz Group (owner of Lidl/Kaufland) committed ~$600M in April as Series E lead. Clients include Oracle, Fujitsu, RBC, LG, and Notion. My take: → ARR more than doubling ($100M to $240M) in just a few months shows demand for enterprise-grade, secure/sovereign LLMs is genuinely exploding, especially among companies serious about data privacy. → A retail conglomerate like Schwarz Group leading a $600M round into an AI company means major non-tech corporations are now placing direct equity bets on AI infrastructure. → The merger with Germany's Aleph Alpha signals the European sovereign AI narrative is heading toward consolidation, rather than staying fragmented among small players. For anyone in enterprise AI, Cohere's growth trajectory is a signal "sovereign/secure LLM" positioning is attracting more premium clients than generic AI models. Do you think ARR doubling this fast is sustainable growth, or still a funding-driven bubble phase?