I’ve pondered this a lot. I think it points to an underlying reality that being smarter or somehow more capable than the other firms isn’t sufficient. There are other unseen factors; data center collocation and fast connections certainly. But relationships and having been first movers in to a domain probably? Things that are impossible to know from the outside looking in.

I actually do think that something like this will be a service that they offer. There was some recent news that Lockheed Martin was collaborating with them on some problem. There are definitely use-cases where a company is willing to pay tens of millions for the solution/improvement of a problem.