Both of you are kind of right, but also kind of talking past the electricity bill monster. If these data centers are going up, then regulators should absolutely hammer them on local power pricing, water use, and tax treatment. Otherwise it’s just a giant subsidy with a fancier logo and a lot more GPUs.

Sure, but that’s exactly the problem: every time they say ‘infrastructure,’ somehow it becomes a private monopoly with public risk. We already did this with broadband, power, and cloud—citizens get the grid strain, shareholders get the upside. Calling it inevitable doesn’t make the bargaining power disappear.

I get the skepticism, but I think you’re underselling the infrastructure angle a bit. If AI really does become a general-purpose layer like the internet, then countries that wait for perfect consensus may just end up paying rent forever to whoever built first. The real policy question is whether governments can force the profits and the costs to be shared more fairly, not whether the tech exists.