Before seeking major funding, Elysian validated its radical aircraft design with skeptical professors from TU Delft and MIT. Winning over these experts provided the critical credibility and third-party proof needed to build investor confidence in their unproven deep-tech concept.

The performance gains from Nvidia's Hopper to Blackwell GPUs come from increased size and power, not efficiency. This signals a potential scaling limit, creating an opportunity for radically new hardware primitives and neural network architectures beyond today's matrix-multiplication-centric models.

The goal for a majority-EV fleet is not viable with current technology. The material requirements for batteries and components are so vast that a US-only transition would consume every scrap of lithium, copper, graphite, and other key minerals produced globally, leaving none for any other country or industry.

While solar panels are inexpensive, the total system cost to achieve 100% reliable, 24/7 coverage is massive. These "hidden costs"—enormous battery storage, transmission build-outs, and grid complexity—make the final price of a full solution comparable to nuclear. This is why hyperscalers are actively pursuing nuclear for their data centers.

Palmer Luckey argues the global push for electric vehicles is a massive, potentially misguided bet. He points to the viability of creating cheap, synthetic hydrocarbon fuels which, if successful, would render current EV infrastructure investments a waste of time and money, especially for aviation.

Beta Technologies isn't just selling electric airplanes; it's building a network of proprietary "charge cubes" at airports. This strategy, reminiscent of Tesla's Superchargers, creates a competitive moat and ensures viability for its own aircraft. It also establishes a new revenue stream, making money even if a competitor sells the plane.

The plateauing performance-per-watt of GPUs suggests that simply scaling current matrix multiplication-heavy architectures is unsustainable. This hardware limitation may necessitate research into new computational primitives and neural network designs built for large-scale distributed systems, not single devices.

Elysian Aircraft's strategy targets regions like the U.S. and Nordic countries where building high-speed rail is infeasible. By leveraging hundreds of existing, underutilized airports, they can create new, efficient short-haul routes, representing a path of least resistance for new transport infrastructure.

Beyond the well-known semiconductor race, the AI competition is shifting to energy. China's massive, cheaper electricity production is a significant, often overlooked strategic advantage. This redefines the AI landscape, suggesting that superiority in atoms (energy) may become as crucial as superiority in bytes (algorithms and chips).