🧠 Technology & AI mixed · 1–3 years
A what‑if from the future

What if a global treaty halts frontier AI training?

A frontier-training moratorium pulls the AI-capex bid: NVDA leads lower as the order-book bellwether, dragging HBM (Micron), custom silicon (AVGO) and the broad semi complex. Direct rhyme is the Jan-2025 DeepSeek shock and Oct-2024 ASML bookings miss, which repriced chip demand 10-15% in days. Skeptic's note: a treaty is slow and leaky, so the equity hit is a sentiment derating, not a fundamentals collapse; the real risk is multiple compression on the capex names, with inference demand a partial offset.

4%
our model probability
over 1–3 years
prediction markets — wisdom of the crowd
loading live odds…
Empirically anchored 4% · 90% range 0–10% · 40 analogues · measured class tech_ai_bear 92% in 3 yr · 3% held back for the unknown
how we built this number — every step
Measured class rate — tech_ai_bear ≈0.8595/yr → 92% in 3 yr92%
Analyst prior · editorial share 2% of the class2%
Pooled · weight 87%4%
Crowd — no liquid market
Reserve 3% · no extremizing (×1.0)4%
Published4%

The class rate is measured from our dated, sourced event library (decade-normalized Poisson — the full table is public at base_rates.json). The variant’s share within its class is the analyst’s editorial call, published so you can audit it. A wider range means thinner precedent. Full recipe: methodology · scored at Reality Check.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (gold) over time vs the crowd's (Polymarket, blue), from the past toward the 1–3 years horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. The gold path is an illustrative reconstruction anchored to today's estimate — real dated events, not a live re-estimate history.

loading the timeline…

What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A global treaty/moratorium halts frontier AI model training. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — AI capex ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

If it happens — the markets it would move

Biggest moves first. Projected moves are cascade-model priors; hist A–B% = what comparable past events actually did (measured abnormal returns), and model prior · unmeasured marks markets with no analogue backing yet. Tap any market for its price history.

MarketClassProjected move
1Nvidia NVDAon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.9%
hist -1.16–-0.48% · other way +4.19% (n=12)
2Broadcom AVGOon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.4%
hist -1.3–+0.4% · other way +5.73% (n=12)
3Micron MUon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -1.3%
hist -4.1–+0.37% · other way -1.63% (n=12)
4Semiconductors SMHon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.9%
hist -0.63–-0.04% · other way +1.37% (n=12)
5AMD AMDon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -1.19–+0.11% · other way -3.31% (n=12)
6TSMC TSMon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -0.58–+0.19% · other way +1.86% (n=12)
7Marvell MRVLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.6%
hist -0.79–+0.87% · other way +0.78% (n=12)
8ASML ASMLon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -2.61–+0.95% · other way -0.21% (n=12)
9Qualcomm QCOMon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.5%
hist -2.57–+0.78% · other way -2.95% (n=12)
10Intel INTCon Hyperliquid 📈 chartEquity▼ -0.4%
hist -5.17–+1.18% · other way -2.72% (n=12)

Probable recommendation

If the scenario above plays out, the probable cross‑asset positioning → a scenario‑conditional read, not personalized investment advice
Long
For a common-man portfolio: Mixed for a typical portfolio — the move is more about rotation than direction. Favour the winners over the losers below rather than net exposure.

Historical precedent — what analogous events actually did

Across 40 analogous events (overlap‑weighted), as abnormal returns — market beta stripped, so it's the event's own effect, not the market backdrop. Shown at 20 days (persistent) and 5 days (immediate); ↺ fades = the two horizons disagree. Confidence = consistency × sample × significance.

TSMC slumps as DeepSeek roils AI-chip demand assumptions 2025-02 Micron's weak FQ2 guidance sparks a sharp December selloff 2024-12 ASML bookings-miss crash 2024-10 Megacap AI-capex doubt selloff 2024-07 Trump 'Taiwan should pay for defense' chip selloff 2024-07 Netflix subscriber-loss crash 2022-04 Meta 2022-02 Didi removed from China app stores after NYSE IPO 2021-07 Nvidia crypto-glut guidance crash 2018-11 Gold tops $4,000 and silver spikes past $50 in historic squeeze 2025-10 Israel strikes Iran — Operation Rising Lion 2025-06 China retaliates to Liberation Day: 34% tariffs + rare-earth controls 2025-04 Gold tops $3,000 for the first time amid tariff and rate-cut fears 2025-03 Tesla shares crater on DOGE political backlash and Europe sales collapse 2025-03 October 2024 Iranian ballistic-missile attack on Israel 2024-10 Gold tops $2,500 for the first time on Fed rate-cut bets 2024-08 Nikkei 225 record single-day rebound 2024-08 Nikkei 225 worst single-day crash since 1987 2024-08 KOSPI biggest-ever point loss triggers circuit breaker 2024-08 VIX third-highest spike on record 2024-08 Intel's Q2 earnings trigger its worst single-day crash since 1974 2024-08 India's Modi loses single-party majority 2024-06 Mexico's Sheinbaum landslide + supermajority scare 2024-06 Nikkei 225 surpasses its 1989 bubble peak 2024-02 ARM debuts on Nasdaq with a 25% first-day pop 2023-09 Wagner Group mutiny against the Kremlin 2023-06 Turkish lira hits record low after Erdogan re-election 2023-05 First Republic Bank seized and sold to JPMorgan 2023-05 Alibaba announces historic split into six business units 2023-03 Regional-bank panic deepens after Signature seizure 2023-03 India Adani-Hindenburg rout 2023-01 Solana craters toward $8 on FTX/Alameda overhang 2022-12 Offshore yuan hits a record low 2022-11 CoinDesk exposes Alameda's FTT-heavy balance sheet 2022-11 August 2022 hot CPI 2022-09 Powell's hawkish 'pain' speech at Jackson Hole 2022-08 China fires ballistic missiles into Japan's EEZ during Taiwan drills 2022-08 Three Arrows Capital liquidation order 2022-06 Celsius Network freezes withdrawals 2022-06 Alibaba upsizes buyback to record $25 billion 2022-03
AssetHistory saysAbnormal (20d · 5d)HitnConfidencevs cascade
MU MUSHORT-3.0% · 5d -3.2%71%40 0.32✓ matches cascade
INTC INTCSHORT-4.4% · 5d -2.7%65%40 0.30✓ matches cascade
NVDA NVDASHORT-0.2% · 5d -3.1%63%40 0.19✓ matches cascade
Gold XAULONG+0.5% · 5d -0.2% ↺ fades61%40 0.19·
AMD AMDSHORT-0.8% · 5d -2.2%61%40 0.17✓ matches cascade
Bitcoin BTCSHORT-4.4% · 5d -3.1%59%40 0.14·
QCOM QCOMSHORT-2.2% · 5d -2.7%57%40 0.11✓ matches cascade
US dollar DXYSHORT-0.0% · 5d +0.0% ↺ fades55%40 0.09·
SMH SMHLONG+0.3% · 5d -0.8% ↺ fades53%40 0.06⚠ differs
MRVL MRVLLONG+1.2% · 5d -2.0% ↺ fades53%40 0.05⚠ differs
10y yield DGS10SHORT-1bp · 5d +2bp ↺ fades53%40 0.05·
High-yield credit HYGLONG+0.2% · 5d +0.2%51%40 0.02·
AVGO AVGOLONG+1.1% · 5d -1.9% ↺ fades45%40 0.00⚠ differs
TSM TSMLONG+0.5% · 5d -0.3% ↺ fades45%40 0.00⚠ differs

Why this probability

Binding global AI training moratorium is novel; race dynamics and US-China rivalry make treaty implausible short-term. A base‑rate‑anchored prior, continuously scored against what actually happens — not a forecast.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Crowd odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-07-03.