The Physical Veto
Why AI's first real pacing mechanism is not policy, but capacity
Questions it answers
- Why can’t more capital guarantee more compute?
- How do power and memory shortages set the pace?
- Do local bottlenecks slow AI, or move it elsewhere?
While OpenAI and Anthropic asked government for a "lawful, verifiable" mechanism to pace AI deliberately, the actual pace of AI's buildout this week was already being set by things that don't negotiate. Texas cut off new grid connections after interconnection requests rose from 48 gigawatts to more than 474. Thailand froze 49 data center builds. DRAM prices rose fivefold in a year. None of it was designed as AI governance. All of it is binding today. Full analysis for Thinkgram members.