First Solar — AI supply-chain exposure

First Solar is the largest US-based maker of solar modules, and unlike most of the industry it builds thin-film cadmium-telluride panels rather than the crystalline silicon that dominates elsewhere. That distinction matters because its product feeds the utility-scale solar farms hyperscalers increasingly contract to power datacenters. In the model it sits in the energy layer, exposed as a supplier of grid capacity and of low cost per kilowatt-hour.

The structural hook is that power has become the tightest constraint of the AI build-out — the bottleneck has migrated from chips toward the electricity to run them. First Solar's pricing power flows from being a domestic, non-Chinese supplier at a moment when data-center operators want firm, policy-advantaged capacity under long procurement contracts. Its chain weight is moderate because it sits a step removed from compute, but its scale as an American module supplier gives it durable exposure to the load growth AI is driving.