Remember the California Gold Rush? The real money wasn’t made by the guys panning for gold—it was made by the folks selling shovels, pickaxes, and blue jeans. Well, guess what? We’re in the middle of another gold rush, except this time it’s all about artificial intelligence, and the “shovels” are data centers, power grids, and semiconductor fabs.
Here’s the thing everyone’s missing: while you’ve been obsessing over which AI chatbot will rule the world, Uncle Sam has quietly decided to play favorites with infrastructure. The government isn’t just refereeing the market anymore—it’s basically become the coach, the referee, AND the guy selling hot dogs in the stands.
Why Your Favorite SaaS Stocks Are About to Get Schooled
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: those Software-as-a-Service darlings you’ve been holding onto like they’re your retirement plan. You know the ones—Adobe, Salesforce, DocuSign. These companies built empires charging per seat, per user, per everything.
But here’s the plot twist: AI doesn’t need a seat. It doesn’t get tired, doesn’t take lunch breaks, and definitely doesn’t need a DocuSign subscription to handle contracts. When an AI agent can draft, design, and execute everything your expensive software suite does—but faster and cheaper—suddenly that “sticky” subscription model starts looking more like quicksand.
The same goes for those massive logistics networks. UPS and FedEx built their businesses on moving stuff around the globe with armies of human workers. But when AI starts optimizing local production and 3D printing goes mainstream, do we really need to ship everything from China? Spoiler alert: probably not.
The Real Money Is in the Physical Layer
While everyone’s debating which AI model will achieve consciousness first, smart money is betting on the boring stuff that makes AI possible. Think electricity, silicon, and the land to put it all on.
Here’s a fun fact: every time you ask ChatGPT to write you a haiku about your cat, it uses 5-10 times more electricity than a regular Google search. Scale that up to billions of queries, and suddenly the power grid starts sweating. Wind and solar are great for your eco-conscience, but they’re not exactly “always-on” when you need to train the next GPT model at 3 AM.
Enter natural gas and uranium—the unsung heroes of the AI revolution. Companies like EQT Corporation and Cheniere Energy aren’t just energy plays anymore; they’re AI infrastructure in disguise. And with the government fast-tracking pipelines and power plants like it’s going out of style, these “boring” energy stocks might be the most exciting thing in your portfolio.
Then there’s the nuclear option (literally). Remember uranium? It’s back, baby! The government’s Genesis Mission is basically a love letter to domestic nuclear power, making companies like Cameco essential to national security. Who knew radioactive rocks could be so patriotic?
The CHIPS Act: When Government Picks Winners
The CHIPS and Science Act threw $50 billion at reshoring semiconductor manufacturing. That’s not market forces at work—that’s the government saying, “We’re done depending on other countries for the brains of our AI revolution.”
Intel, once the sleepy giant of PC chips, suddenly became America’s strategic semiconductor champion. MP Materials and Lithium Americas went from mining companies to “critical national infrastructure.” When the feds start calling your rare earth mine a matter of national security, you know you’re in the right business.
The Bottom Line: Follow the Money (and the Permits)
Look, I’m not saying software is dead or that logistics companies are doomed tomorrow. But when the government starts fast-tracking permits for data centers while your favorite SaaS stock struggles with margin compression, maybe it’s time to read the room.
The “One Rule” economy is simple: align with what the government is subsidizing, not what it’s regulating. Energy buildouts? Getting fast-tracked. Domestic chip manufacturing? Getting billions in subsidies. Critical mineral supply chains? Getting litigation shields.
Meanwhile, per-seat software pricing in an AI world? Good luck with that.
The physical layer—electricity, silicon, and land—is where policy, capital, and necessity are having a three-way collision. And in that collision, fortunes are being made by the people selling the shovels, not the ones still looking for gold in all the wrong places.
So maybe it’s time to stop betting on the apps and start betting on the infrastructure that makes them possible. After all, in every gold rush, the real winners are the ones who own the picks and shovels—not the ones still digging holes.