Methodology

The atomic figure is a layer score — a 0–100 reading for one layer of a supply chain (for example, “indium phosphide wafer” or “optical transceiver module”). A higher score means the supply of that layer is concentrated in fewer independent hands and rests on more fragile disclosed relationships; a lower score means it is more distributed. The reading is derived only from what the tracked companies actually report.

Layer scores roll up into the higher-level figures the same way every time:

• A chain score summarizes the most concentrated layers within a single chain.
• A sector index summarizes the scored chains within a sector.
• The site-wide Chokepoint Index summarizes the most concentrated layers across the whole map.

Rollups only ever draw on scored layers and chains (see Section 04). A layer we decline to score contributes nothing to the figures above — it is never treated as a zero.

The inputs are public company filings and disclosures. We read what companies themselves report — their financial statements and the relationships and dependencies they disclose — and compute every figure from that. There is no survey, no estimate, and no hand-entered number anywhere in the scores.

Every figure records the date of the run that produced it, and scores are recomputed on a regular cadence so that newly filed reports are reflected. The specific sources, fields, and selection rules we use are proprietary.

These numbers describe disclosure structure. They are not the things people sometimes assume:

• Concentration is not market share. A reading is computed over the players we track in a layer, not over an entire market. A high reading means the tracked names are concentrated — not that they control the market.
• Disclosed figures are dated filing facts, not live numbers. Anything drawn from a filing is whatever a company reported in a specific period. It is not a real-time figure and may be stale.
• None of this is investment advice or a return prediction. The Chokepoint Map makes no alpha claims — no figure here forecasts a stock’s return or is offered as a reason to buy or sell. This is a standing editorial policy, stated plainly.

We would rather show nothing than show a figure built on too little disclosure. When a layer does not clear our disclosure bar, it is marked “insufficient disclosure” and shows no score. It is left out of every rollup rather than counted as a low or zero reading.

Foreign filers without comparable figures and private companies still count as players — they are part of the map — but they are excluded from the computation because we have no like-for-like number for them. A coverage indicator makes that exclusion visible, so a layer that leans heavily on untracked or foreign players reads as thinner, not falsely precise.

Candidate companies are surfaced from the public filing record, but discovery is a shortlist, not an admission. Every entry is reviewed and approved by a person against filing evidence before it appears on the map, and the supporting evidence and the approval date are recorded as provenance. Nothing lands on a layer automatically.

Every computed figure carries a method version and an “as of” date. If the way a figure is computed changes, the version changes with it — so any number on the map can always be traced back to the exact method that produced it. The current method is cpx-2.0.