Helium, War, and Four Companies Most People Have Never Heard Of
“It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance…” and to “…solidify the United States as a global energy leader long into the future.”
The White House, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” January 23, 2025; and “Unleashing American Energy,” January 20, 2025.
War is deception.
No one truly knows what is happening in the Middle East. Headlines change every hour. Narratives shift by the day. But when governments act, not speak, the truth becomes visible.
I would argue that Iran did not close the Strait of Hormuz. Their currency has practically collapsed. Their economy depends on exports through that same strait. And they import enormous quantities of food through it. Ninety million people. A desert country. Seven days without food shipments and the regime faces something far more dangerous than any American airstrike. If Iran had truly closed Hormuz, every neighboring country whose economy, food supply, and water imports depend on that passage would turn against them immediately.
Someone else closed it.
The United States does not need to fire a single shot. All it takes is for insurance companies to declare war risk and refuse coverage. No ship moves. The strait is closed. Legally.
Now look at what happened next. Four hundred million barrels released from member countries’ emergency reserves. Never in history has that number been reached. If you think the conflict will end in two weeks, you release 30 million. If you release 400 million, you know something the public does not know yet. The West holds roughly 1.8 billion barrels in combined strategic and industrial reserves. Hormuz could remain effectively closed for four to six months. That would be catastrophic for Middle Eastern exporters. It would be catastrophic for China.
America’s plan to dominate artificial intelligence runs through one element that almost no analyst is discussing. Not oil. Not lithium. Not copper.
Helium.
Helium is the gas without which TSMC cannot manufacture chips, MRI scanners cannot operate, and rockets cannot be pressurized. Semiconductor fabs cannot operate without it. With the closure of Hormuz and the drone strike on Ras Laffan in Qatar, roughly 35 percent of global helium supply has disappeared. This is a major shock for all countries, especially China, which now has limited options because most of the remaining helium production comes from the United States.
China has almost no domestic helium production. It cannot sanction its way out of this. It cannot build a pipeline around it. Oil has strategic reserves. Helium does not. I think that the market has not priced this yet. And when a market has not priced something real, that is where serious money is made.
A few small companies are sitting directly on top of this opportunity. Most investors have never heard of them.
