If you had told me a year ago that the United States would be waging an intractable war in the Middle East, oil prices would rise to more than $100 a barrel, interest rates would be moving sharply higher, and inflation would be running well above 3%, my forecast for the US economy would have been gloomy to say the least.
Few investors would naturally put artificial intelligence data centers and US shale oil in the same frame. One is built on advanced semiconductors and software; the other on rock, steel and drilling rigs. But the economic pattern is familiar. A breakthrough changes what is possible, demand outruns supply, attractive profit pools emerge and capital floods in. Then capacity expands, costs fall and competition tests which businesses have durable advantages.