> What makes LLMs difficult is getting access to all the hardware to train them, getting the data, and being able to preprocess that data.

Yes, that's my opinion too. GAOs (Grassroots AI Organisations) are constrained by access to data and the hardware needed to process the data and train the model on it. I look forward to a future where GAOs will crowdsource their computations in the same way many science labs borrow computing power from people around the world.