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ABUNDANCE AND SCARCITY

 

Investing Through a World of Contrasts

The defining investment question of the next cycle may not be whether the world has enough. It may instead be determining what becomes abundant, what remains scarce, and, most importantly, where those two forces meet.The first half of 2026 has presented investors with an increasingly complex picture of the global economy. Beneath the headline economic data, markets are being shaped by a powerful tension between technological abundance and physical constraint. The world is becoming capable of producing, processing and communicating more information than at any previous point in history. At the same time, the physical systems required to support that expansion remain finite, capital-intensive and often slow to develop.On one side of this equation is a remarkable acceleration in technological capability. Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly beyond experimentation and into commercial application. What was recently regarded as an emerging technological possibility is increasingly becoming part of the operating infrastructure of businesses across industries. Companies are investing heavily in computing capacity, advanced software, automation, data infrastructure and increasingly sophisticated systems of machine-assisted decision-making. These investments are beginning to influence not only productivity, but also the structure of entire industries.

 

The implications extend well beyond the technology sector itself. Businesses are reconsidering how work is organised, how information is processed, how decisions are made and how capital is allocated. Tasks that once required substantial amounts of human time can increasingly be automated or accelerated. Software is becoming more capable, data is becoming more valuable and computing power is becoming a strategic economic resource. As these capabilities improve, the cost of producing certain forms of intelligence, analysis and digital output may continue to decline.This creates a powerful form of abundance.Yet technological progress does not eliminate physical reality. In many cases, it makes physical constraints more important.Every additional data centre requires electricity. Every expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure requires chips, servers, cooling systems, networks and buildings. Every new digital service ultimately depends upon physical infrastructure that must be designed, financed, constructed and maintained. The more rapidly computing demand grows, the more consequential the availability of power becomes. The digital economy may appear increasingly intangible, but its foundations remain deeply physical.

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Electricity must be generated and transmitted. Data centres must be built and connected to reliable power supplies. Telecommunications networks must be expanded. Semiconductor manufacturing requires enormous quantities of capital, specialised equipment and sophisticated supply chains. Critical materials must be extracted, refined and transported. Skilled workers must be recruited and retained. Infrastructure projects must receive financing, permits and, increasingly, political support.None of these constraints can be solved simply by writing better software.This is where the investment landscape becomes more interesting.The expansion of technological capability is creating new sources of abundance, but it is simultaneously increasing demand for resources that cannot be produced at the same speed. Computing capacity can expand rapidly when capital is available, but electricity generation and transmission often require years of planning and construction. Software can be updated almost instantly, while power plants, transmission networks, ports, industrial facilities and transportation systems cannot.

 

The result is a world increasingly defined by contrasts.

 

Some things are becoming dramatically more abundant. Computing power is expanding. Data availability is increasing. Automation is spreading. Digital distribution is becoming cheaper and more efficient. Artificial intelligence is reducing the cost of certain forms of analysis and knowledge work. Capital and technology are combining to increase the potential productivity of businesses across multiple sectors.At the same time, scarcity is becoming more valuable.Reliable electricity, grid capacity, strategic land, advanced semiconductor manufacturing, specialised infrastructure, high-quality natural resources, skilled labour and access to long-duration capital may become increasingly important sources of economic advantage. In an environment where demand is accelerating faster than supply can respond, the owners and providers of constrained resources may capture a disproportionate share of the value created by technological expansion.

 

This creates an important distinction for investors.

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The opportunity may not simply be to own the technologies associated with abundance. Nor is it necessarily enough to concentrate exclusively on the resources experiencing scarcity. The more interesting opportunity may lie in understanding the relationship between them.Artificial intelligence, for example, can make information processing more abundant, but the expansion of AI simultaneously increases the demand for electricity, semiconductor capacity, data centres and network infrastructure. Automation may reduce the need for certain forms of labour while increasing demand for highly specialised engineering, technical and managerial capabilities. Digital commerce may reduce the importance of physical storefronts while increasing the importance of logistics, warehouses, payment infrastructure and connectivity.

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In this sense, abundance does not necessarily destroy scarcity. It can relocate it.

 

A technological breakthrough can make one resource less valuable while making another more valuable. The development of more efficient computing systems may reduce the amount of processing required for a particular task, yet the widespread adoption of those systems can still increase total demand for computing infrastructure. More efficient energy use can lower energy intensity per unit of output, while economic growth and electrification increase overall electricity consumption.This interaction between abundance and scarcity may become one of the defining characteristics of the investment environment in the years ahead.The question, therefore, is not simply where technological progress is occurring. It is where technological progress encounters a bottleneck.Whenever an abundant resource meets a scarce resource, economic value can accumulate around the constraint. If computing becomes abundant but access to electricity remains limited, power infrastructure becomes strategically important. If software becomes abundant but specialised expertise remains scarce, human capital becomes more valuable. If capital is plentiful but investable infrastructure is limited, ownership of high-quality assets may command a premium. If information becomes abundant but trusted information remains scarce, credibility and distribution can become increasingly valuable.The investment landscape of the next cycle may consequently reward a different kind of analysis. Rather than focusing exclusively on the most visible technologies or the companies receiving the greatest attention, investors may need to examine the systems that allow those technologies to scale.History provides a useful framework for understanding this dynamic. Major technological transformations rarely create value only for the companies that invent the central technology. The industrial revolution was not simply a story about factories. It required railways, ports, energy systems, financial institutions, engineering capabilities and new forms of distribution. The digital revolution was not simply about computers and software. It required telecommunications networks, data centres, semiconductor manufacturing, cloud infrastructure, payment systems and global logistics.

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The same principle may apply to artificial intelligence.

 

The most visible beneficiaries of the AI revolution may be the companies developing models and applications. But the broader economic opportunity could extend into the infrastructure required to support their growth. Semiconductor manufacturers, power producers, grid operators, data-centre developers, cooling systems, networking companies, industrial equipment providers and specialised infrastructure owners may all participate in the expansion.This does not mean that every infrastructure asset will become valuable, nor that every company associated with scarcity will generate attractive investment returns. Scarcity alone is not enough. Investors must still consider valuation, capital intensity, regulation, competition, technological substitution and the durability of demand.The central question is whether a scarce resource can remain scarce while demand for it continues to grow.

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That distinction is critical.

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Some forms of scarcity are temporary. High prices can attract new supply, technological innovation can create substitutes and changing economic conditions can reduce demand. Other forms of scarcity are structural. They may be constrained by geography, regulation, physical availability, long development timelines or the enormous capital requirements needed to increase supply.Structural scarcity can create stronger and more durable economic advantages.The same principle applies to abundance. Not every form of abundance destroys value. When the supply of something increases dramatically, the economic value may migrate toward complementary assets. The decline in the cost of computing did not eliminate the value of technology; it enabled entirely new business models. The expansion of digital information did not eliminate the value of distribution; it made trusted platforms and efficient channels more important.For investors, this suggests that the next phase of technological transformation should be viewed not as a simple contest between old industries and new industries, but as a reorganisation of economic relationships.Technology changes the cost structure of the economy. Capital follows the opportunities created by those changes. Demand moves toward newly affordable goods and services. Bottlenecks emerge where supply cannot adjust quickly enough. Investment opportunities then develop around those bottlenecks, provided that the underlying economics are sufficiently attractive.This is why the concept of abundance and scarcity may offer a more useful framework than simply dividing the market into technology and non-technology sectors.The most important investment opportunities may sit between sectors rather than within them.

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Energy and technology increasingly intersect. Infrastructure and artificial intelligence increasingly intersect. Finance and industrial transformation increasingly intersect. Data and physical assets increasingly intersect. Human capital and automation increasingly intersect.The boundaries between industries are becoming less meaningful as technological progress changes the economics of entire systems.For investors, the challenge is to identify these connections before they become obvious to everyone else.The first half of 2026 therefore points toward an investment environment in which technological optimism and physical realism must coexist. The extraordinary expansion of artificial intelligence and digital capability creates enormous potential for productivity and economic growth. But the scale of that opportunity also exposes the limitations of the physical world in which technology operates.The future may contain more computing, more automation, more data and more digital intelligence than ever before. It may also require more electricity, more infrastructure, more specialised materials, more skilled people and more capital than the previous economic system anticipated.That is the central contrast.Abundance creates new possibilities. Scarcity determines how quickly those possibilities can be realised.For investors, the opportunity may therefore lie neither entirely in abundance nor entirely in scarcity. It may lie at the intersection between them: in the assets, businesses and systems that connect rapidly expanding technological demand with the finite physical resources required to satisfy it.Understanding that intersection may be essential to understanding the next investment cycle.

 

The Foundations of the Next Economic Cycle

I. The New Investment Landscape

Every major technological transition creates a temptation to focus on what is most visible.The new technology receives the attention. The companies building it become the subject of headlines. Capital flows toward the most recognisable names. Valuations begin to reflect expectations about what the technology might eventually become, sometimes long before its economic consequences can be measured with confidence.

 

This is understandable.

 

Technological revolutions are naturally compelling. They change the way people work, communicate, produce and consume, and the companies responsible for those changes can become some of the most valuable enterprises in the world.But the history of economic transformation is more nuanced.The greatest economic value created by a technological revolution often extends well beyond the original invention.The Industrial Revolution was not simply a story about factories. It required railways to move goods, ports to connect markets, energy systems to power production, financial institutions to fund expansion and distribution networks to connect manufacturers with consumers. The factory was visible. The economic system supporting the factory was broader.The digital revolution followed a similar pattern.Software became one of the defining technologies of the modern economy, but software could not scale without telecommunications networks, semiconductor manufacturing, data centres, electricity, cloud infrastructure and global connectivity. The applications were visible to consumers. Much of the infrastructure supporting them remained largely invisible.

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Artificial intelligence is likely to follow a comparable path.

 

The technology may be digital, but its economic foundations are overwhelmingly physical.AI models require computing power. Computing requires semiconductors. Semiconductors require specialised manufacturing facilities, materials, equipment and enormous amounts of capital. Data centres require land, cooling systems, networks and reliable electricity. Electricity requires generation capacity, transmission infrastructure and increasingly sophisticated grids.The apparent weightlessness of the digital economy therefore conceals a substantial physical economy underneath it.This creates an important distinction for long-term investors.The visible opportunity is not necessarily the entire opportunity.When markets focus on the companies developing the most recognisable technologies, they can sometimes overlook the businesses and assets required to make those technologies commercially viable at scale.The economic value of the next technological cycle may therefore extend across a much wider ecosystem.It may include the companies developing AI models, but also those manufacturing advanced semiconductors, providing computing infrastructure, building data centres, supplying electricity, expanding networks, producing specialised equipment and managing the physical systems required to operate increasingly digital economies.

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The question is not simply where technological innovation is occurring.

 

It is where economic dependence is being created.

 

A technology can be revolutionary while becoming increasingly dependent upon a relatively small number of physical inputs. When that happens, the suppliers of those inputs may acquire strategic importance.This is particularly relevant because technological adoption rarely occurs in isolation.A business that introduces AI into its operations may require additional computing capacity. Additional computing capacity may require more electricity. More electricity demand may require new generation and transmission. New infrastructure requires capital, engineering expertise, materials and construction capacity.One innovation can therefore create an investment chain extending far beyond the original technology.This is why we believe the next phase of economic expansion may be shaped as much by the infrastructure supporting AI as by AI itself.The market may continue to focus on what is new.Long-term capital should also consider what becomes necessary.

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II. Our Central Question: Abundance vs. Scarcity

The traditional economic problem is one of scarcity.Resources are finite. Capital is limited. Labour is constrained. Land is not infinitely expandable. Time cannot be recovered.Economics has historically been concerned with how societies allocate scarce resources among competing uses.Technology changes that equation.A machine can process information faster than a person. Software can replicate a process at almost no marginal cost. Digital networks can distribute information across the world almost instantaneously. Artificial intelligence can potentially increase the productivity of an individual employee across a wide range of tasks.

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In certain areas, technology can create something approaching abundance.

• Information can become cheaper.

• Computation can become more accessible.

• Certain forms of production can become increasingly automated.

• Some services that once required substantial human effort may eventually be delivered at a fraction of their previous cost.

• This is one of the most powerful economic possibilities associated with AI.

• But abundance itself can create new scarcity.

• This is the paradox at the centre of the current investment environment.

 

If computing becomes cheaper and more capable, demand for computing may increase dramatically. If AI becomes more powerful, businesses may deploy it across more functions, increasing demand for data centres, semiconductors, electricity and network capacity.If automation allows companies to perform more tasks with fewer employees, the value of certain forms of routine labour may decline while the value of specialised expertise, judgement and technical capability increases.

 

The result is not the elimination of scarcity.

• It is the relocation of scarcity.

• Technology can make one resource abundant while increasing demand for another.

• This dynamic has appeared throughout economic history.

 

More efficient transportation increased trade but created demand for ports, roads and logistics. More efficient manufacturing increased production but increased demand for energy and raw materials. The digital economy reduced the cost of transmitting information while increasing demand for computing infrastructure and electricity.Efficiency changes the structure of scarcity.That distinction has considerable investment implications.An investor focused only on abundance may conclude that technological progress will continuously reduce costs and therefore reduce the economic importance of physical constraints.

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An investor focused only on scarcity may underestimate the ability of technology to increase productivity and create new sources of supply.

• Neither perspective is sufficient on its own.

• The more useful approach is to understand the interaction between the two.

• Where technology creates abundance, what becomes scarce as a consequence?

• Where scarcity persists, can technology alter it?

• Where technological adoption accelerates demand, can infrastructure expand quickly enough to keep pace?

• And where infrastructure cannot expand quickly, who controls the scarce capacity?

 

These questions are becoming increasingly important because the next economic cycle may be characterised by an unusual coexistence of abundance and constraint.Knowledge may become abundant while electricity becomes more strategically valuable.

• Computing may become more efficient while demand for computing capacity rises.

• Automation may increase productivity while specialised human judgement becomes more valuable.

• Capital may be plentiful in aggregate while high-quality investment opportunities remain scarce.

• This is not an economic contradiction.

• It is the natural consequence of technological progress interacting with physical reality.

• For investors, the central question is therefore not whether abundance will prevail over scarcity.

• It is where abundance will emerge, where scarcity will remain and how the two forces will influence one another.

That distinction may determine where durable economic value is created.

 

III. Conviction One: AI Is an Economic Infrastructure Story

Artificial intelligence should no longer be viewed simply as a technology-sector phenomenon.Its consequences are becoming increasingly broad, reaching into manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, logistics, professional services, energy, education, research and countless other industries.The important question is no longer whether AI will change the economy.

• It is how deeply and how quickly.

• Technological adoption typically develops through several stages, although the boundaries between them are rarely precise.

• The first stage concerns capability.

• Can the technology actually work?

• The second concerns commercialisation.

• Can businesses deploy it at a cost that makes economic sense?

• The third is much more consequential.

• Can the technology materially improve productivity across the wider economy?

• That is where the long-term significance of AI may ultimately emerge.

• The difference between technological capability and economic productivity is substantial.

 

A system can be technically impressive without producing meaningful economic value. A business can deploy sophisticated AI tools without materially improving its margins. An organisation can invest heavily in technology while failing to redesign the processes necessary to capture its benefits.The economic transformation occurs when technology changes the underlying economics of production.If AI allows a business to produce more output with the same workforce, the implications extend well beyond technology spending.

• Margins can change.

• Capital allocation can change.

• Labour requirements can change.

• Product development can accelerate.

• Customer service can become more efficient.

• Research can move faster.

• Competitive barriers can strengthen or weaken.

• Entire business models can be redesigned.

• The economic effects may therefore extend far beyond the companies developing AI itself.

• This is why investors should remain selective.

• Technology adoption does not automatically produce economic returns for every participant.

 

Some businesses will develop genuine advantages because they possess proprietary data, intellectual property, distribution networks, customer relationships or organisational capabilities that competitors cannot easily reproduce.Others may simply spend heavily to remain competitive.

 

The distinction matters.

 

If a technology becomes widely available, its benefits can eventually become embedded into industry standards. The companies using the technology may improve productivity, but the economic surplus may not necessarily accrue to the technology provider.In some markets, technological innovation creates enormous value for customers while increasing competitive pressure among suppliers.

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The central investment question is therefore not simply:

Who is using AI?

• Almost everyone eventually will.

• The more important question is:

• Who captures the economic value created by AI?

• That question requires a deeper analysis of competitive advantage.

• Does a company control proprietary technology?

• Does it possess scarce computing capacity?

• Does it own infrastructure that others require?

• Does it have pricing power?

• Does it have a distribution advantage?

• Can it reinvest the cash generated by technological improvements at attractive rates?

• The answers may differ substantially across industries.

• The same technology can create enormous value for one business while weakening another.

 

AI may reduce costs for a company with strong distribution and pricing power, allowing it to expand margins. The same technology may reduce barriers to entry in another industry, increasing competition and making it harder for existing companies to maintain returns.Technology is therefore not inherently positive or negative for any individual business.Its economic impact depends upon where the value sits within the competitive structure.This is why AI should be understood as an economic infrastructure story.The technology itself is only the beginning.The broader investment opportunity may include the computing systems, semiconductor ecosystem, data infrastructure, energy networks, industrial equipment and specialised human capital required to make AI economically productive.The next stage of the AI cycle may therefore be less about demonstrating what machines can do and more about determining how deeply those capabilities can be embedded into the real economy.If adoption becomes broad enough, AI could become one of the most important productivity forces of the modern era.But the returns will not necessarily be distributed evenly.The companies that benefit most may be those positioned at the intersection of technological capability, scarcity, infrastructure and economic value creation.

That is where long-term investors should look.

 

IV. Conviction Two: Electricity Becomes Strategic Capital

The digital economy has traditionally been described as weightless.

It is not.

Every digital system ultimately requires physical infrastructure, and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is making that reality increasingly visible.

• AI models require computing infrastructure.

• Computing infrastructure requires data centres.

• Data centres require electricity.

• And the electricity must be reliable.

• This creates a structural relationship between technological expansion and energy demand that extends far beyond conventional energy markets.

• The significance lies not merely in the quantity of electricity required, but in the quality and reliability of the systems providing it.

A data centre cannot simply operate when power is available and shut down when it is not. Critical digital infrastructure requires reliability, redundancy and predictable access to energy.

As AI adoption expands, electricity generation, transmission networks, grid modernisation, storage systems, cooling infrastructure and industrial capacity may become increasingly important components of the technology economy.

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• The constraint may not be the availability of capital willing to build another data centre.

• The constraint may be whether the surrounding infrastructure can support it.

• A data centre can be planned.

• A semiconductor facility can be financed.

• An AI model can be developed.

• But expanding the electricity system that supports them can take years.

New generation capacity may require extensive planning and permitting. Transmission infrastructure can require long development periods. Grid connections can become bottlenecks. Skilled engineers and construction capacity can become scarce. Equipment manufacturers may face their own supply constraints.

• This introduces time into the economics of technology.

• And time can create scarcity.

• The relationship between AI and electricity therefore deserves to be considered as more than an energy-market issue.

• Electricity can become a strategic input into technological deployment.

 

A region with abundant and reliable power may possess an economic advantage in attracting data centres, advanced manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries. A region with constrained infrastructure may find that demand for technology grows faster than its ability to accommodate it.

• The investment implications can be significant.

• A resource that has historically been treated as a utility input can become a determinant of economic capacity.

• When electricity is plentiful, it may be viewed primarily as a cost.

• When electricity becomes constrained, reliable access to power can become a competitive advantage.

• This changes the way investors should think about the technology ecosystem.

• The value may not sit exclusively with the companies producing AI systems.

• It may also sit with the infrastructure required to operate them.

• Generation assets, transmission networks, grid equipment, energy storage, cooling systems, industrial construction, data-centre infrastructure and the specialised companies capable of expanding these systems may all become part of the broader AI investment landscape.

• This does not mean every infrastructure asset will generate attractive returns.

• Capital expenditure can be excessive. Regulation can affect economics. Technology can change demand patterns. Energy markets remain cyclical and geographically differentiated.

 

The investment opportunity exists where structural demand meets constrained supply and where the owners of the required infrastructure can earn an appropriate return on the capital deployed.This is the deeper lesson.When demand accelerates faster than infrastructure can respond, the scarce infrastructure can become more valuable than the technology it supports.AI may be the visible innovation.Electricity may be one of its less visible constraints.And the companies capable of solving that constraint may ultimately become some of the most important participants in the next phase of economic expansion.For long-term investors, the question is therefore not simply how much AI the world will use.It is whether the physical economy can build what the digital economy requires. That may prove to be one of the defining investment questions of the second half of the decade.

 

V. Conviction Three: Scarcity Returns to the Industrial Economy

For much of the past generation, investors became accustomed to a world in which global production appeared increasingly abundant. Manufacturing networks expanded across borders, supply chains became more sophisticated, and companies were able to locate production wherever labour, materials, energy and infrastructure could be obtained most efficiently.The dominant philosophy was straightforward: maximise efficiency, minimise costs and allow global markets to determine where production should occur.

 

The model delivered extraordinary economic benefits.

 

It helped reduce the cost of goods, expanded international trade, increased consumer choice and allowed companies to specialise across increasingly complex global networks. Capital flowed toward the most productive locations, manufacturers developed deep supplier relationships and businesses became increasingly comfortable operating across jurisdictions.But efficiency and resilience are not always the same thing.A supply chain designed to minimise every unnecessary cost can become vulnerable when the environment changes. A company may discover that its lowest-cost supplier is located thousands of kilometres away, that a critical component depends upon a single manufacturing region, or that an essential material cannot be replaced quickly when geopolitical or logistical conditions change.

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• The global economy is therefore beginning to place a different value on resilience.

• The objective is no longer simply to produce at the lowest possible cost.

• Increasingly, businesses and governments are asking whether production can continue when conditions become difficult.

That shift is visible across energy infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, advanced industrial capacity, critical minerals, telecommunications, defence-related production, transportation networks and the physical and digital infrastructure required by the modern economy.

 

The significance of this transition extends beyond individual industries.

 

For years, investors were encouraged to think of economic progress as a movement away from physical assets toward increasingly intangible forms of value. Software, intellectual property, digital platforms and data became central to the modern economy, and the market values of many technology businesses reinforced the impression that the physical foundations of economic activity were becoming less important.

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• The next decade may demonstrate the opposite.

• Intangible growth still requires tangible foundations.

• Artificial intelligence may exist in software, but it requires semiconductors, electricity, data centres, networks and specialised infrastructure. Digital commerce may operate through applications, but it ultimately depends upon warehouses, transportation, ports and logistics. Advanced manufacturing may rely on sophisticated software and automation, but it still requires factories, equipment, materials and energy.

• The more technologically advanced the economy becomes, the more important certain physical systems may become.

• This creates a different way of thinking about scarcity.

• Scarcity is not simply the absence of a resource. It is the difficulty of expanding supply when demand increases.

 

A resource that can be reproduced quickly is unlikely to retain scarcity value for long. But an asset requiring years of planning, construction, investment, permitting or specialised expertise can remain constrained even when demand is obvious.This is where economic value can become particularly durable.A transmission network cannot necessarily be expanded overnight. A semiconductor facility requires years of investment and highly specialised capabilities. A major port cannot simply be relocated. A strategically important mineral cannot necessarily be substituted immediately. A skilled workforce cannot be created instantly through capital expenditure.

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• Time itself becomes part of the supply constraint.

• This may lead to a gradual revaluation of physical assets.

• The next industrial cycle may therefore be less about abandoning globalisation and more about redefining what businesses mean by resilience. Companies may maintain global supply chains while simultaneously developing alternative sources of production. Governments may encourage domestic capacity in strategically important industries. Businesses may accept somewhat higher costs in exchange for greater certainty of supply.

• That represents a meaningful economic change.

• For investors, the opportunity lies in understanding where the cost of resilience is justified by the value of reliability.

• Not every duplicated factory will create economic value. Not every domestic supply chain will be more efficient. Not every strategic investment will generate attractive returns.

• The question remains whether the capital being deployed creates an asset with durable economic importance.

• This distinction brings scarcity back into the centre of industrial investment.

• In a world increasingly dependent upon technology, the physical assets that make technology possible may become strategically valuable.

• The economy may become more digital.

• The foundations of that economy may become more physical.

• That is not a contradiction.

• It is one of the defining characteristics of the next cycle.