Remember when building anything in America took longer than a Marvel movie franchise? Well, plot twist: the government just hit the fast-forward button, but only for their favorite kids.
While everyone was arguing about politics on Twitter, something way more important was happening in the basement of bureaucracy. The feds basically said “screw the red tape” when it comes to AI infrastructure. They’re calling it the “One Rule” economy, and honestly, it’s the biggest policy shift since someone decided the internet was kind of important.
Here’s the deal: For decades, if you wanted to build literally anything—a pipeline, a factory, even a lemonade stand—you had to survive what I like to call the “Hunger Games of Permits.” Fifty different state regulators, thousands of local zoning boards, and enough environmental impact studies to kill a forest. It was a system designed to make you give up and go home.
But then AI happened, and suddenly the government realized that China wasn’t going to wait for our county commissioners to debate whether a data center would “disrupt the local aesthetic.” So they grabbed the biggest regulatory sledgehammer they could find: Federal Supremacy.
The VIP Treatment (For Some)
The “One Rule” is basically the government’s way of saying “AI is too important for democracy.” If you’re building AI infrastructure, congratulations—you just got a golden ticket to skip the line. Local regulators trying to slow you down? The DOJ’s new “AI Litigation Task Force” will sue them into next week.
It’s like having a friend who works at the club. Same rules for everyone else, but you get to walk right past the velvet rope.
Take Project Stargate—a $100 billion supercomputer that would normally spend two decades in “permitting hell.” Under the new rules? It’s being treated like a wartime emergency. Same with Project Genesis, which is basically the government’s plan to bring all the important tech manufacturing back to America, whether other countries like it or not.
The New Math
Here’s where it gets interesting for your money. The government has picked three “unavoidable realities”:
1. AI is the new oil (whoever has the most compute wins)
2. China is the new USSR (this is Cold War 2.0)
3. Our power grid is from the Carter administration (and that’s a problem)
So they’re quietly clearing the path for massive expansions in natural gas and nuclear power. While they talk about green energy, they’re betting on whatever keeps the AI servers from going dark.
What This Means for Your Portfolio
Stop looking at price-to-earnings ratios and start looking at “proximity-to-power” ratios. The companies getting the VIP treatment aren’t playing the same game as everyone else. They’re the beneficiaries of a state-sponsored fast track.
Look for companies building the “physical layer”—construction and engineering giants with government contracts. Energy companies deemed “nationally significant.” Miners and refiners protected by new tariff walls.
The era of “hands-off” government is dead. Whether you love it or hate it, the machine has a life of its own now. And that machine is directing a trillion-dollar river of capital into very specific assets.
The smart money isn’t fighting this trend—it’s riding it.