Weekly|Enterprise SoR Rerating Make Sense, AIDC Demand at 2x Deliverable Supply, MRVL Optics Carries the Raise, MDB & PANW

The biggest shift in tech this week is the divergence between software and semi/hardware performance. In our software previews this quarter (e.g., CRM, NOW), one meaningful change we noticed was a shift in enterprise customers’ tone. To recap, over the past few quarters, when asked about the impact of LLMs on incumbent SaaS systems, only channel partners defended the value of the system of record (SoR), while customers were hesitant. In 1H26, enterprises were busy tokenmaxxing and evaluating what they could build with coding agents, delaying SaaS budget plans. Entering 3Q, we saw a noticeable shift in attitude, with customers turning to AI token budgeting and realizing LLMs can’t replace their SoRs entirely. As a result, deals were delayed until the end of 2Q and more in 3Q, which improved channel partners’ feedback. This was also evident in our Enterprise AI Survey. However, before this software earnings season, the market is still pricing a full disruption of LLM on SoRs, creating a major expectation mismatch.

This was evidenced by crowded short positioning on CRM into earnings, and it was exactly why we turned neutral from conservative in preview. We didn’t foresee the announcement of Claudeforce, which was a major bullish narrative turn in our view. Previously, enterprise SaaS like CRM has been trying hard to defend its UI value, which would likely be commoditized in the agent era. The shift started a few months ago, when CRM announced Headless 360, allowing LLMs to access its underlying data more directly and effectively giving up the UI layer. Claudeforce takes it a step further, as CRM confirms its strategy shift to defend the data and workflow layer without defending the UI. More importantly, the involvement of Anthropic demonstrates that LLMs have very low intention to fully replace SoRs, at least for now, while actively looking for a more realistic way of partnership. Therefore, a re-rating of enterprise SoRs makes sense here, while SMB-focused players remain more vulnerable.

On semi, NVIDIA did something this quarter it has never done: it put a number on the following year. FY2028 revenue is guided to roughly +70% vs. sell-side expectations of +45-50%; customer orders point to demand doubling; and the guide is still held back by supply rather than customer demand. A company only underwrites a year out when it can see the order book and knows the ceiling sits somewhere other than demand. Our AIDC deep dive this week is the same story told from the other end of the stack. North American demand in 2027 runs to roughly 35GW on an IT basis against 16.5-23.4GW that can actually be delivered, a gap of about 2x, and the binding constraint is power delivery rather than capital or construction. The 2027 grid path is already closed: anything not in the interconnection queue by mid-2025 does not energize next year, large gas turbine slots are sold out through 2031 on a four-to-five year order-to-COD cycle, and permitting killed 78% of the 43GW of stranded projects. Modular construction compresses the build and still cuts COD slip probability by only 10-20%, because what it cannot touch sits upstream of the build. Scarcity is already in the price: ARR per GW spans $8.3bn to $50bn across the four players we compare, and NBIS has signed at 3-4x its own installed-base unit price within 18 months.

This Week’s Reports

AI data centers — 2027 demand runs at roughly 2x what can actually be delivered, and power is the gate. North American demand of about 35GW IT meets 16.5-23.4GW of deliverable supply next year, with the grid path closed to anything not queued by mid-2025 and large turbine slots sold out through 2031.

Enterprise AI — Volume 1 of our adoption survey. Spend is still growing across the thirteen samples, seats are close to saturated at the companies already committed, and the increment is moving into API calls and production workflows.

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