They simply can't... Less powerful in that sense means less developed. Such kind of research demand enormous resources and knowledge.

These days industrial knowledge is mostly in private hands with universities that are not anymore a "center of (public) knowledge" bu mere gym to form Ford-models workers with a different skillset respect of classic one but not much different in terms of ability to understand the big picture, being autonomous etc.

In present society there is no room for new "Einstein", "Tesla" etc.