The US believes a 10x increase in training compute will make its proprietary models 'twice as capable.' This widening performance gap is a strategic lever intended to make aligning with the American AI stack an unavoidable choice for nations seeking competitive advantages, forcing them to overlook sovereignty concerns.
Third-party tracker METR observed that model complexity was doubling every seven months. However, a recent proprietary model shattered this trend, demonstrating nearly double the expected capability for independent operation (15 hours vs. an expected 8). This signals that AI advancement is accelerating unpredictably, outpacing prior scaling laws.
The U.S. strategy treats AI not just as technology, but as a foundational tool for global influence. By creating a dominant 'tech umbrella,' it aims to forge alliances and exert power in a way analogous to how its military has secured its global standing since WWII, making AI the new core of its national power.
The U.S. may be allowing other nations freedom in using its AI models, mirroring its strategy with the U.S. dollar. The goal is to encourage widespread adoption first, creating a dependency that allows the U.S. to later regulate use cases through its domestic laws, much like it imposes financial sanctions.