We just do not have many companies and certainly dont have a culture of using up loads of resources without a certain pay off. Paying people in their 20s $600k a yr is not the issue, people here would do this for $100k a yr, or even 0, but they dont have access to the resources.
it's not lack of compute that's the issze. it's that in Europe, it's unthinkable to pay a guy in his mid 20s $600k salary and give him resources and freedom to train models without having oversight by a committee of gerontocratic professorswho don't keep up with the research