So, the US economy spends trillions of dollars to be at the "frontier" and China puts out a model that basically does the same thing, for free, and for a tiny fraction of the development cost. How is this sustainable?
It's not like US companies spend trillions on training itself.
Mostly it's datacenter build out and circular financing magic when the same dollars being commited multiple times by multiple companies passing hot potato to each other. They basically commit capacities 2-3 years ahead.
It's 'sustainable' because there's enough regulatory risk to using Chinese models that many will avoid them, and a 3T parameter model is still a bit beyond even many enthusiasts for running locally.
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its hyperscalers and neoclouds data center build out that ate those trillions.
a lot of those money is the commitment from US AI labs that's not yet spend until the data center is roll out.
you are conflating.
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There would be no Chinese model without US models to distill though. So, in a way, the Chinese models also cost a trillion dollars, they just don’t cost China that much.