Finance · Research · Seattle

Nick Barran

Finance student at UW Foster focused on wealth management and building clearer financial tools.

Featured research · 2026

The Circular AI Capital Map

An interactive map of who is financing the AI buildout, built from company announcements and SEC filings. The question it asks is how much of the money committed comes back to the company that supplied it.

A chip vendor funds a model lab, the lab commits spend to a cloud provider, and the cloud provider buys equipment back from the chip vendor. A chip vendor funds a model lab, the lab commits spend to a cloud provider, and the cloud provider buys equipment back from the same chip vendor.

The diagram shows the pattern the project looks for. A chip vendor invests in a model lab, the lab commits spending to a cloud provider, and that provider buys hardware from the vendor that started the sequence. Measuring how much of the buildout actually runs this way is the point of the ledger. So far, most of the disclosed value does not.

Selected work

Currently

  • Building the Circular AI Capital Map dataset
  • Preparing for CFA Level I
  • Studying finance at UW Foster