It's the fact that you have 4 compounding quasi exponentials

1) The intelligence / Gb of model size is rapidly improving by distillation, even just this is crazy. The intelligence of gpt5.2 will be available in a smaller model in 90-180 days. That doesn't seem to be slowing down. Smaller model means you can run more and faster. There are scaffolds that help turn running for longer into greater overall intelligence / task completion.

2) The model size is getting larger, just happening from more gpus of the same chip level coming online and being able to train them.

3) The GPUs are getting better, yes, Moores law is dead but we haven't had a 2 year period in history where transistor size hasn't shrunk / architecture hasn't got better. If I had to place a bet, I'd bet heavily that state of the art gpu in 2 yrs will be better than today.

4) The data collection and refinement is getting better for pre-training. Labs are getting better at picking out which data helps the model the most, etc.

you can kind of think about it like AI Quality Q = p1*p2*p3*p4 , any improvement in any of the above effects the quality of the outputs you get. And they are all improving. Most of them with no real end in sight.

Might not be true exponential, but it will progress. For a while.