If anyone does invent ASI then everyone else will shortly after even if its entirely independent because all of the players in this space are just making incremental upgrades by throwing more compute at the problem.

There are no magic leaps of true innovation happening anywhere that can't be replicated everywhere.

The only shocking thing about "AI" technology is how ultimately simplistic it all is at a core level.

So the only way the first to have ASI will be able to stop everyone else from having it soon after is if they attempt to use the ASI to proactively murder everyone else.

If you have ASI that follows instructions, you can just instruct it to not get stolen and then it won't get stolen. Most logic / intuition breaks down with ASI.