AI's Token Economy Hits Industrial Scale in 2026

The infrastructure for machine reasoning—measured in trillions of daily tokens—has matured into a capital-intensive, energy-dependent industry dominated by data centers and specialized storage vendors. Token throughput, not human users, now determines which companies control market value. Electricity and real estate have become the binding constraints on AI capability. This explains why energy megadeals and infrastructure investors now matter more than software companies in determining AI's trajectory.