alt Hacker NewsNo, the US is _leading_ the AI race, but the race isn't over.
What's the point of leading the race for 90% of it, if they're gonna slip on their own sweat and fall down by the end? In non metaphorical terms, what's the point of spending billions of dollars rushing to get the best AI tech at all costs, when the competition can distil your progress and catch up in 6-12 months while only spending 1% of what you spent.
Even in the aspect the article cares about, commercialization, the US is starting to lose marketshare, I've seen people move from cc/codex plans to use glm/opencode plans due to the recent squeeze the US companies put on plan usage, the US companies are screwed if that sticks, not everyone needs the bleeding edge models, they just want to pay $20/month and have the models be decently capable.
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> No, the US is _leading_ the AI race, but the race isn't over.
When someone says their football team is winning in the first half, do you say, "Umm, no, they're leading, not winning!"
Leading the race makes sense if it's a winner takes all market. AI cannot be a winner takes all market, because of national security reasons.
I would also argue that as AI gets better it will also be more fungible. It will be valuable like electricity. Lots of companies make good money producing electricity, but not the kind of money current investors are hoping for.
Mark Cuban in a recent interview answered your question: companies are afraid there is going to be just one in the end—sort of the way there is one ad-company now on the internet. They want to be that one.
Whether they're correct that there can be only one is of course a matter of debate. But that is at least the mind-set they are operating under according to Cuban.
What if it is not winner take all? What if there is no race. What if what USA has been doing is just burning money with possibly unsustainable debt load and way over build valuations...
AI being commodity server capacity might be a thing. And the customers might even manage without hyperscalers... In that sort of end scenario whole current market might look rather foolish.