if the US locks down its frontier models, China does the same with theirs.
Then you get two superpowers racing each other at the top — and everyone else, Europe included, wakes up in the third division overnight. Not because they're behind on talent or ideas, but because the best models simply aren't available to build on anymore.
For any company outside those two blocs, "which frontier model can we even access" becomes a strategic question, not a technical one.
The AI race was supposed to be global.
Today is the day many economies realized AI isn't just another technology — the lack of it can wreck your economy.