> No they don't.
Yes they do. See how easy being flippant is.
> disproves
No, I'm being logically consistent, the same economic rules at work is PRC fast follows on the cheap which gives them net pricing advantage, which in context of everyone bleeding money just means they lose less money. Losing money is structurally fine, i.e. forever subsidies for some companies, like tech giants with alternative revenue, it's lethal for pure play AI, which US SOTA are. Economics of bleeding the same, US SOTA just bleeding much more without a tourniquet. This not "ReeeSeeSeePee" economics, this just economics.
> crappy models mostly don't matter
Well yeah, but we're not talking about crappy models. We're talk about good enough models. Good enough models that siphon SOTA demand and force SOTA discount which otherwise funded/set pace for SOTA development. Good enough competition entirely matters.
> don't match your conclusions as I highlighted
Yes because I'm rejecting/arguing against your points, hence they don't match, by design.
> insurmountable lead in AI. If investors lose money, who cares
Well that's another tier of hopium. Back to reality, if you want US AI to lead, the setup you want is for US SOTA AI to be sustainable, you want OAI, ANT dollars to stretch as far as it can. You want Nvidia, ASML, SKHynix i.e. all the component makers whose margins exploded to revert to mean so US labs can buy more compute per $ while shovel makers rub pennies. What you don't want is hardware makers soaking up generational $$$ from investors and tech company warchests in mother of all tier boom/bust cycles that would starve future booms. Like yes, the shovels can be snatched up for pennies eventually (lets just optimistically entirely ignore compute depreciation curve), but its' fundamental gross misallocation, you should optimize for SOTA AI sustainability, not shovel maker tax (who are already sustainable) bloat. If ANT only needed to spend 300B instead of 900B for compute obligations for same amount of compute because Nvidia+co only making 40% margins instead of 80%, then convo around US SOTA sustainability would be very different. Maybe 900B was fair price if unassailable US lead given, but good enough Chinese models makes US SOTA 900B brittle vs 300B survivable.
> Provide some predictions then.
ANT/OAI balance sheet will be obviously non-sustainable in 1-2 years. They will slow down frontier spending to balance book. They will fail and either political capture to be too big to fail, or be bought out by other US tech majors.Based on ANT operating margin going from positive to negative (i.e. lose for every dollar spent) for SpaceX compute commitments which is just first tranch/preview of what will happen for other 800b on horizon. Based on the market they thought they were going to capture, they no longer fully capture and can't capture at price they though (i.e. 80% reduction in API pricing recently - because they got deepseeked). So their TAM is smaller than they thought, their margins are being compressed faster they they thought, but they still have to spend/pay shovel makers like it hasn't. How about you show some math, where's the $$$ going to come from. We know their largest consumers are enterprise who are cutting back. Where are they going to find 100s of billion year year. Name high value niches they'll capture... frontier math, replacing underpaid TAs? There is chance some unforseen massive premium demand pops up and SOTA compute commitments become boon, but not obvious what on horizon.
This final reply, leave your prediction history can judge.
E: append to clarify, core prediction is ANT/OAI can/will go through IPO / motions but won't survive to be US SOTA champions medium term on financials, i.e. their at some point fulfilling 900b compute obligations it will become evident economics will kill them, but this does not mean they could not survive with non market shenanigans like regulatory capture. The related thesis being regardless which path, i.e. market failure, or regulatory capture, their balance sheet after compute obligations rack up will force slow down in SOTA development/pace due to their specific balance sheet conditions. Second related is AI crash = AI premium evaporates = AI hardware price regress towards mean, and new US upstarts can take over cheaper SOTA.