Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson Calls Natural Gas (NATGAS) the Simplest AI Bet

Wilson Bets on Energy Over Chip Stocks

Fred Wilson, co-founder of venture firm Union Square Ventures, laid out a blunt thesis on Wednesday: the simplest way to bet on artificial intelligence is energy, not technology shares. In a short clip posted on X, the investor argued that the fuel behind the AI buildout still trades near its long-run range even as the sector it powers booms. “If you really want just a simple way to bet on AI and not have to think about all this other stuff, just bet on energy,” Wilson said in the clip on X. The contrast with equities is hard to miss. Chip stocks have slid this month, and the group logged eight straight down days last week, a stretch long enough that Goldman Sachs steered nervous investors toward defensive names. Against that backdrop, natural gas has barely moved even though it supplies the power for most new AI data centers, a mismatch that now fuels the online debate over how to play the buildout. The observation spread quickly. Nikita Bier, formerly head of product at X, made the same point in his own post on X: nearly every AI data center runs on the commodity, yet its cost has stayed mostly flat or drifted lower. Another investor pushed the idea into other raw materials, arguing that copper and power give traders cheap AI exposure through deep markets with leverage, the kind of access crypto venues now mirror through stock perpetual contracts. Copper, he added, set record highs in 2026 as AI demand tightens supply, though softer industrial data from China, the largest buyer of the metal, has weighed on consumption.

@WillManidis · X post

The clip on X.

View on X

The price action explains why the debate exists. COINOTAG data shows natural gas (NATGAS) trading at $3.27, down 1.18% on the day, inside a $3.26–$3.36 range. The daily trend still reads as an uptrend, although the MACD signal has turned bearish and the 14-day RSI sits close to neutral at 48.9. Our composite scoring rates the $3.15 support at 89/100 and the $3.37 resistance at 91/100. That support line carries the most weight from here: a slide toward $3.15 would test one of the strongest bands of buyer interest on the chart, while a daily close above $3.37 would pressure the cheap-energy argument at the heart of the Wilson trade.

Data Centers Run on Cheap Gas

The numbers behind the argument are large. The United States operates 1,391 data centers, with 2,819 more planned, and gas accounts for roughly 75% of the on-site power at the facilities still on the drawing board. Nuclear, fuel cells and batteries supply the remainder, giving investors several side doors into the same trade rather than a single entry point. Context tempers one part of the post, though. Bier's chart tracks the United States 12 Month Natural Gas Fund (UNL), a vehicle that holds futures contracts rather than the commodity itself. Rolling those contracts adds cost, and the fund has fallen far more than the underlying fuel as a result. A reader treating that chart as proof that gas itself has collapsed would be looking at a fund-specific artifact, not the benchmark. The benchmark tells a calmer story. Henry Hub, the US reference price, spent most of the past decade in a $2 to $4 band per million British thermal units (MMBtu). Wood Mackenzie projects roughly $5 by 2035 as electricity demand climbs, a projection that amounts to the real test for anyone hunting an AI bet outside the tech sector. If gas rises from here, energy producers would take a growing slice of AI spending away from today's chipmakers. The fight for cheap power reaches past equities, too: higher gas prices would reshape the cost math for Bitcoin mining, an industry whose margins already move with electricity prices. Readers weighing energy against digital assets can start with our guide to cryptocurrency versus stocks. The immediate test is simpler: whether Henry Hub finally breaks out of its decade-old $2 to $4 band.