> procuring the necessary compute to train and run advanced models at scale is becoming more and more expensive,

There will certainly be a glut of compute that will follow this extreme scarcity. There is already a flood of chinese models that are almost cutting-edge, and it's almost guaranteed this trend will continue as american AI gets better. There is no hidden magic in USA, it's pretty much doable, and it's being done.

In the end, the frontier models is not where the value will lie. The country that makes the best entrepreneurial rules for AI development will win economically.

Newsflash: the permanent periphery is already a reality for large parts of europe , asia . the world is half american