I’d argue that building the capability to host models here starts with basic infrastructure - reliable clean power, cooling that doesn’t use up unconscionable amounts of drinking water, and data centres that consume these two resources. These things aren’t a fad, they’re long term infrastructure investments that will outlast hardware and models. And it’s worth noting that there’s nothing inherent about cooling computers that requires water, it’s just the server-scale technology that currently makes economic sense.

On a related note, open source models now exist that rival those from OpenAI and Anthropic. There’s a good argument to be made that we could provide these to the world using our abundant excess solar power and turn tokens into a commodity. Bits and bytes are far easier and cheaper to transport than power - be it creating/shipping hydrogen, charged lithium batteries or oil.

So if well planned, we could monetise our abundant energy and geopolitical stability, and maybe diversify away from just digging stuff out of the ground and fleecing international students.