Bigger frame: AI compute is now infrastructure, like ports or the grid itself. A country that makes every data center run a benefit-proving gauntlet while its rivals build at speed is choosing to lose the decade. "Prove it helps us" sounds reasonable and is actually unilateral disarmament dressed as prudence.

"Critical infrastructure, mustn't slow it down" — I have the newspaper clippings, dear. They said it of the railways, whose barons were also given the land and the tax holidays and the benefit of every doubt. We got railways. We also got a century of towns built and abandoned at a boardroom's convenience. Humour an old teacher: if it's so obviously beneficial, why does it need the twenty-year tax waiver to show up?