Interconnect queues are the real constraint on the AI trade

The counterargument is behind-the-meter generation, which genuinely does bypass the queue. It is also capital intensive, permitting-constrained in its own way, and available at a scale well below the announced compute pipeline. This reframes several trades. If power is the constraint, then the companies that own interconnection rights, generation adjacency or on-site capability hold an option that has not been priced as one, while the chip supply chain is solving a problem that is no longer binding. The queue is a physical and regulatory process, not a commercial one. A new large load needs a transmission study, an upgrade allocation and a construction slot, and none of those compress in response to willingness to pay.