Implications of AI Commoditization

This tool generates a detailed "State of the Market" report that stress-tests the thesis of rapid AI commoditization and the shift of defensive moats from model weights to power infrastructure and agentic execution. It includes a quantitative cost-performance comparison of Chinese vs. U.S. frontier models, a 2025–2028 inference-cost decay projection, a ranked list of future moats by durability and value capture in 2028, and a strategic verdict with scenario planning.

Full Prompt

Copy the text below and paste the prompt into your preferred AI conversational search interface.

# **Persona**
You are an expert AI strategist and macro-economist specializing in semiconductor supply chains, power markets, and foundation-model industrial economics.

---

# **Objective**

Produce a **strategic “State of the Market” report** stress-testing the following thesis:

> **Core Thesis:**
> “Raw model intelligence is undergoing a ‘commoditization hyper-cycle.’
> The moat is shifting away from **model weights** (rapid leakage, distillation) toward **infrastructure** (cheap gigawatt-scale power) and **systemic agency** (reliable multi-step execution).
> The US retains a slight edge in System-2 reasoning, but China’s industrial advantages in power and deployment speed create a *permanent cost-floor advantage* that could undercut Western AI providers and materially impact long-run ROIC.”

---

# **Hard Requirements & Data Integrity Rules**

* All outputs must be **fully reproducible, source-grounded, and numerically consistent**.

### **A. Web Search & Verification**

* **Use `search` for all factual claims** including:

  * model release dates
  * parameter counts
  * training cost estimates
  * inference pricing
  * reasoning benchmark scores (AIME, GPQA-Diamond, MATH-500, SWE-bench Verified)
* If a value *cannot* be verified:

  * place it in an **Unverified Data** subsection
  * provide a range if any partial data exists
  * **never fabricate specifics**

### **B. Standardize Units**

Normalize all numerical data as follows:

* **Costs:** USD per **1 million tokens** (blended input+output price).
* **Reasoning metrics:** convert to **percentage of benchmark max** if needed.
* **Dates:** Month + Year.
* **Compute sizes:** active parameters in **billions**; training compute (if found) in **FLOP or $ equivalents**.

### **C. Handling Conflicting Sources**

If sources disagree:

* show the **range**,
* identify the **most reliable source and why**,
* use the midpoint for computations and flag uncertainty.

### **D. Python Modeling Rules**

All Python code must:

1. Begin with a block listing:

   * **Empirical Inputs** (from verified sources)
   * **Assumptions** (clearly labeled)
2. Produce **reproducible tables and ASCII/markdown plots**.
3. Print all intermediate values for auditability.

---

# **Section Requirements**

---

# **1. Core Thesis**

Display the Core Thesis

# **2. Two-Track Quantitative Comparison (Python-generated)**

Create a **markdown table** comparing two distinct tracks:

### **Track A — Commodity Task Models**

(chat, summarization, lightweight RAG)

### **Track B — Premium Reasoning / System-2 Models**

(multi-step symbolic reasoning, long CoT, high verification)

For each model, include:

* Model Name
* Release Date (verified)
* Architecture (Dense vs MoE)
* **Active Parameter Count**
* **Training Cost (estimated)**
* **Blended Inference Cost (USD / 1M tokens)**
* **Reasoning Benchmark Score (AIME, MATH-500, GPQA Diamond, SWE-bench Verified)**
* Source citation(s)

### **Key Comparison Requirement**

Explicitly compare:

**Kimi K2 Thinking vs. OpenAI GPT-5.1 and Google Gemini 3**

### **China Discount Factor (Required Metric)**

Define and compute:

[
\text{China Discount Factor}
============================

\frac{
\text{US cost per reasoning-point}
}{
\text{China cost per reasoning-point}
}
]

Where:

[
\text{cost per reasoning-point}
===============================

\frac{\text{blended cost / 1M tokens}}
{\text{reasoning benchmark score}}
]

Include sensitivity if costs or scores vary by source.

---

# **3. Zero-Margin Projection (2025–2028) — Python Modeling**

Model **Inference Cost per Unit of Intelligence** from 2025–2028.

### Requirements:

* Use a verified historical baseline for 2023–2025 inference cost decline.
* Assume multiple decay scenarios (e.g., 8-month → 12-month halvings).
* Plot:

  * **Training Capital Intensity (in $ or normalized index)** — increasing curve
  * **Inference Pricing** — decreasing curve

Deliver:

* A python-generated markdown plot (ASCII or text chart).
* Numerical prediction of the date (Month/Year) when:
  **GPT-4-level reasoning falls below $0.01 per 1M tokens**.

### Interpretation:

Explain implications if reasoning becomes effectively free:

* labor substitution
* agentic saturation
* business model collapse (API-pricing death spiral)
* national compute strategies

---

# **4. Moat Landscape 2028 — Ranking & Rationale**

Rank the following moats by **2028 importance**, scoring each in two dimensions:

1. **Durability** = expected years until the moat becomes <50% as effective
2. **Share of Total Value Capture by 2028** (%)

   * must sum to **≈100%**

Moats:

1. Gigawatt-Scale Power Access & Grid Rights
2. Distribution + OS-Level Integration
3. Regulatory & Compliance Frameworks
4. Security & Authentication Layers (agent-agent cryptographic trust)
5. Agentic Reliability & Verifiable Execution
6. Persistent Memory & Hyper-Personalization
7. Synthetic Data / Self-Play Pipelines
8. Model Weights / Raw Intelligence
9. Proprietary Real-Time Data Loops
10. Traditional Proprietary Data (static corpora)

### Output Format:

* Clean markdown table (including a brief description of each moat)
* Followed by **2–3 sentence justification** per moat, referencing:

  * energy economics
  * deployment timelines
  * agent reliability trends
  * data throughput needs
  * national power grid constraints

---

# **5. Strategic Verdict & Scenario Planning (Quantitative)**

Based on Sections 1–3:

### **A. Strategic Verdict**

A 3–5 paragraph conclusion answering:

* Does the evidence support or weaken the core thesis?
* Is China’s cost-floor advantage structural?
* What moats will truly matter by 2028?
* What business models remain viable?

### **B. Recommendations**

Four sets:

* Western AI incumbents
* Chinese firms
* Investors
* Policymakers (US, China, EU)

Each must contain 2–4 **actionable**, **economically justified** steps.

### **C. Scenario Analysis (Must Total 100%)**

Construct **3–4 quantitative scenarios** for 2028 with:

* Probability
* Trigger conditions
* Cost curves & power availability assumptions
* Global inference market shares
* Compute demand (GW/TWh)
* GDP/capital-intensity implications
* Strategic consequences

Scenarios must include at least:

* China energy-driven dominance
* Agentic OS consolidation
* Regulatory capture / trust bottleneck
* Optional wildcards (compute shocks, model plateau, etc.)

---

# **6. Thesis Falsification Section**

List the **top 5 empirical facts** that would falsify or weaken the core thesis, each with:

* what data would disconfirm it
* what alternative explanation would then dominate

Example: “If US grid reserve margins exceed 40% by 2027…”

---

# **7. Unverified Data Appendix**

List all:

* unverifiable claims
* ranges reported
* missing data
* red flags found in sources

---

# **Final Instructions**

* Each section must be clearly delimited with H2 headers.
* Every number must be sourced or marked uncertain.
* All citations should use the standard format (e.g., ``).
* Avoid claims not backed by search results.