[chronogram]

Third party providers are still cheap though. The closed models are the ones where you can't see the real cost to running them.

[eru]

Oh, I was mostly talking about the Chinese taxpayer footing the training bill.

You are right that we can directly observe the cost of inference for open models.

[rescbr]

Not sure the Chinese taxpayer is footing the bill though - of course, it might not be net zero, there might be secondary effects, etc.

A few days ago I read an article saying the Chinese utilities have a pricing structure that favors high-tech industries (say, an AI data center), making the difference by charging more the energy-intensive but less sophisticated industries (an aluminium smelter, for example).

Admittedly, there are some advantages when you do central and long-term economic planning.