Some AI can be built from anywhere. Some can't.

Some AI can be built from anywhere. Some can’t.

That’s the difference between horizontal and vertical AI. Horizontal products solve broad problems, so geography matters less. But vertical AI has to sit close to the people who know the industry inside out.

And when you zoom out, that’s exactly how the AI stack is evolving.

Foundational models are anchored in research-heavy hubs like San Francisco, where talent and capital concentrate. Infrastructure gravitates to where compute is cheapest to scale.

But the application layer plays by its own rules. It can’t be centralized. It has to be built where industry expertise already lives.

That expertise has quietly compounded over decades from San Diego to Salt Lake City and Buffalo to Bengaluru. Israel became synonymous with cybersecurity, while Singapore turned into a command center for global logistics.

So yes, policies may shape mobility. But they don’t shape expertise.

And AI will always find its way back to where the expertise lives.