There is a habit, common in fast-moving industries, of mistaking the most visible problem for the most important one. In artificial intelligence, that habit has taken the form of an obsession with chips. We speak of shortages, races, allocations, and breakthroughs, as if the future of AI were decided solely by silicon. It is not. Artificial intelligence does not ultimately run on chips. It runs on power, land, and permission. And those are in far shorter supply. A recent anal