Dylan Patel

Patel recalled developing his hardware interests through repairing a game console and participating in online communities, where he also moderated forums or Reddit communities. Before starting his research business, he spent roughly two years in quantitative work.⁠[1]

Patel founded SemiAnalysis in 2020, initially writing chip and supply-chain analysis independently. His official biography describes its later expansion into cloud infrastructure and AI models as the business grew into a research team.⁠[2]

Patel combined technical conferences, papers and conversations with industry participants to develop supply-chain sources. In a Sequoia interview, he emphasized understanding current manufacturing processes, costs and supplier relationships as well as proposed technologies.⁠[1][3]

Former employee Wei Zhou alleged improper confidential-data use involving Patel. SemiAnalysis filed suit on March 27 and denied the allegations, describing a dispute over dismissal and compensation. The contested allegations are not established facts.⁠[4][3]

Substrate reported in September 2026 that Patel raised SemiAnalysis Capital Fund I for early-stage investing; its correction confirmed a final $500 million size. Combining research and investing raised conflict-of-interest questions. Patel said the firm still publishes research critical of clients.⁠[3]

Patel co-authored a measured study of AI subscription allowances with Andrew MegalaaAndrew MegalaaAndrew Megalaa is an author contributing to SemiAnalysis research on AI subscription costs. He co-authored its October 2026 subscription-value report with Max Kan and Dylan Patel and discussed the testing on SemiAnalysis Weekly.Open the full entry and Max KanMax KanMax Kan is a SemiAnalysis analyst and co-lead of its Tokenomics team. He studies AI token demand and inference economics, holds a computer-science degree from Williams College, previously worked in Strategy and Product at Jane Street and co-founded reinforcement-learning environment startup Habitat.Open the full entry, relating plan usage to API pricing.⁠[5]

Patel’s research spans fabrication, packaging, accelerators, memory, datacenters and AI costs. His firm publishes articles and supplies models and consulting. His analytical views should be distinguished from the official disclosures of the companies he covers.⁠[2][6]

In a Sequoia interview, Patel argued that model architecture, infrastructure software and chips must be optimized together. Comparing chips in isolation can miss model-specific requirements and latency–throughput trade-offs; he advocates evaluating inference systems across these constraints.⁠[1]

SemiAnalysis’s InferenceX publishes configurations, hardware-run records and data for inspection and reproduction. It compares performance, cost and energy across workloads rather than representing every inference task with a single peak-speed figure.⁠[7]

Firm biography: https://semianalysis.com/dylan-patel/ (opens in a new window). X: https://x.com/dylan522p (opens in a new window). LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanpatelsa/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2][8][9]