Frontier Signals

How we curate

Methodology · publishing pipeline.

Frontier Signals only publishes when a signal traces back to a verifiable infrastructure commitment or documented counterparty. The public output has three lanes: dense signal posts, narrative posts, and short form video.

Operating principle

No vibes posts. No vendor laundering.

Every output traces back to a verifiable infrastructure commitment or a documented counterparty. No generic quantum arrival framing, no press release recycling, and no story where the only differentiator is tone.

One signal can fork into all three lanes. Most fork into one.

Source pool

Primary sources lead. Everything else is radar.

Tier 1 · Primary

  • SEC filings: 8 K, 10 Q, 10 K, S 1, 6 K. Use SEC EDGAR full text search.
  • Company IR press releases direct from company investor relations domains.
  • Earnings call transcripts from verified transcript sources.
  • Government filings: FERC interconnection queue, ISO and RTO load forecasts, DOE LPO, USPTO patent grants.
  • Standards bodies: NIST PQC, IEEE, JEDEC, OCP.

Tier 2 · Secondary

  • Hyperscaler quarterly reports: NVDA, AMD, AVGO, MU, MRVL, ARM, INTC.
  • Quantum operator filings: IBM, Quantinuum, IonQ, Rigetti, D Wave, PsiQuantum through partner filings.
  • Industry intel: SemiAnalysis, The Information, NextPlatform, ServeTheHome, Tom's Hardware Pro.
  • Trade press for packaging, HBM, and photonics: EE Times, Compound Semiconductor, Optics.org.

Tier 3 · Niche radar

  • Patents: USPTO PatFT and Patentscope for packaging, photonics, cryo CMOS, PQC, and optical interconnect.
  • arXiv: cs.AR, cs.CR, quant ph, and eess.SP.
  • Conferences: ISSCC, Hot Chips, IEDM, IEEE Quantum Week, OFC, SC, MLSys.
  • Chinese language sources: EETrend, IThome, Eastmoney filings.

Discard list

  • Press release wires republished without analysis.
  • LinkedIn think posts.
  • Top ten quantum stocks content.
  • Anonymous social claims without filing pointers.
  • Breaking claims without a source link in the next sentence.

Signal test

Four of six or it stays in the inbox.

  1. Verifiable commitment. Capex, MW, square feet, GPU count, qubit count, or contract value with a primary source.
  2. Disclosed counterparty. Named buyer, seller, funder, or operator.
  3. Consensus contradiction. The public label is wrong or the structure is unusual.
  4. Independent cross reference. Two or more filings, or filings plus a binding contract.
  5. Layer beneath the label. The infrastructure work changes something real.
  6. Watch item. A next observable inside six months.

If a candidate clears fewer than four, it is logged for monitoring rather than published.

Cadence

Skip weak slots before publishing weak work.

Cadence Output Lane Time budget
Daily Monday to Friday Signal scan and candidate logging Inbox 30 min
Twice weekly Dense signal post, about 600 words Site 90 min each
Weekly Narrative post, about 1500 words Substack 3 hours
Biweekly Batch of 3 to 4 short videos Video 2 hours
Monthly Capex and deployment tracker update Lead magnet 90 min

Templates

Every format keeps fact and read separate.

Dense signal post

  1. Headline: signal first, no rhetorical question.
  2. Layer, date, confidence.
  3. Verified facts with primary source links.
  4. Beneath the label: what the press release calls X and what the infrastructure layer shows.
  5. The read: clearly marked interpretation.
  6. Watch items and sources.

Narrative post

  1. Hook: one counterintuitive observation.
  2. Official narrative: the company claim stated neutrally.
  3. Actual structure: filings, contracts, numbers, parties, mechanics.
  4. Translation: infrastructure layer read.
  5. What to watch and footnotes.

Short form video

  1. 0 to 3 seconds: strangest fact as the hook.
  2. 3 to 15 seconds: three facts as text overlays.
  3. 15 to 40 seconds: the infrastructure read.
  4. 40 to 55 seconds: what to watch.
  5. 55 to 60 seconds: full breakdown callout.

Fact check protocol

Hold the piece until the source trail survives pressure.

  1. Every numeric claim has a primary source footnote.
  2. Every first, largest, or only claim is verified against two independent sources.
  3. Every direct quote links to a transcript, filing, or press release.
  4. Every speculation is explicitly marked as a reading or hypothesis.
  5. Cold review waits at least 24 hours and asks what a hostile reader would catch.
  6. Counterparty check asks whether named parties have been contacted when criticism is material.
  7. The Scilex test replaces press release framing with the underlying contract structure. If the piece collapses, the framing was the story.

Workflow tooling

Monitoring, drafting, review, and distribution stay traceable.

Stage Tool
Source monitoring RSS for IR feeds, SEC EDGAR alerts, and arXiv categories.
Candidate inbox `inbox.md` in the repo, one signal per H2 with a status tag.
Drafting Markdown in repo, branch per piece.
Fact check Footnote linter plus manual pass.
Cross post Substack markdown paste, then site deploy.
Reels CapCut or Descript for cuts, Canva for overlays.
Analytics Plausible, Substack native analytics, and native platform analytics.

Do not publish

Hard kills, regardless of how interesting.

Research Desk

Daily Quantum

Curator
Dave Robertson
Sources monitored
  • arXiv quant ph · kind arxiv · query `cat:quant-ph` · max results 50 · sort submittedDate descending
  • Quantum Computing Report · RSS · `https://quantumcomputingreport.com/feed/` · max items 20
  • The Quantum Insider · RSS · `https://thequantuminsider.com/feed/` · max items 20
Cadence
Daily collection at 07:30 UTC through GitHub Actions. Manual dispatch is available when the desk needs a fresh run.
Inclusion criteria
Items are kept when they carry useful signal on hardware progress, error correction, control, calibration, quantum AI, commercial movement, or industry context. arXiv papers are included when their abstract and category match the configured query.
Exclusion criteria
Generic listing pages are not used as public source links. Items with no desk match stay in the unrouted bucket for review instead of being forced into the public surface.
Routing
Routing compares each title and summary against configured keywords for Hardware and Error Correction, Control and Quantum AI Integration, and Commercial and Industry Context. The strongest keyword match sets the section.

Silicon Desk

Chip Signals

Curator
Dave Robertson
Sources monitored
  • NVIDIA AI Platforms · RSS · `https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/cats/ai_platforms_deployment.xml` · max items 24
  • NVIDIA Enterprise and HPC · RSS · `https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/cats/enterprise_hpc.xml` · max items 20
  • AMD Press Releases · RSS · `https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/rss` · max items 20
  • Semiconductor Engineering · RSS · `https://semiengineering.com/feed/` · max items 20
Cadence
Daily collection at 07:30 UTC through GitHub Actions. Manual dispatch is available when source feeds move faster than the scheduled run.
Inclusion criteria
Items are kept when they mention AI accelerators, GPUs, HBM, advanced packaging, chiplets, custom silicon, networking, foundry capacity, tools, wafers, or fab spend. Each configured feed also has its own keyword filter.
Exclusion criteria
Items outside the AI semiconductor stack are filtered out before report generation. Feed posts that do not match compute, memory, packaging, networking, or foundry keywords are not routed into a public desk section.
Routing
Routing compares each title and summary against configured keywords for Compute Accelerators, Memory and Advanced Packaging, Custom Silicon and Networking, and Foundry, Tools, and Capex.

Power Desk

Power Signals

Curator
Dave Robertson
Sources monitored
  • EIA Today in Energy · RSS · `https://www.eia.gov/rss/todayinenergy.xml` · max items 34
  • GE Vernova News · RSS · `https://www.gevernova.com/news/subscribe/all/rss.xml` · max items 30
Cadence
Daily collection at 07:30 UTC through GitHub Actions. Manual dispatch is available when power infrastructure news needs a same day refresh.
Inclusion criteria
Items are kept when they mention data centers, electricity demand, power demand, load growth, grid, generation, capacity, transmission, electrification, transformers, turbines, gas, or Prolec.
Exclusion criteria
General energy items are excluded when they do not connect to load growth, data center power, grid constraints, generation capacity, cooling, electrical gear, markets, or policy.
Routing
Routing compares each title and summary against configured keywords for Data Center Power Demand, Grid and Generation, Cooling and Electrical Infrastructure, and Markets and Policy.

Editorial standards

Source links should resolve to the original item, not a feed listing. Items can be rerouted or removed when the classifier misses the real desk fit. Corrections should update the public page and the source report so the next reader sees the cleaned record.

Frontier Signals is not investment advice. It is an editorial signal map for research, silicon supply, and physical capacity.