>n the first scenario, an investment in any AI model company that does not own its own compute is like buying a tar pit instead of an oil well. In other words, this future has AI like a commodity and the entity who wins is the one who can produce it at the lowest cost.

Why do you assume that AI will become a commodity that is only metered by access to compute?

Right now (since June 2024), Anthropic is ahead of the field in quality of their product, especially when it comes to programming. Even if O1/O3 beat them on benchmarks, they are still nowhere near when normalized for compute needs.

Can they sustain this? I don't know, but in the end this is very similar to known software or even SAAS business models. They are also in a somewhat synergetic relationship to Amazon.

Did office software ever become commoditized? Google and many more tried hard, but there is still the same company in the lead that was in the 90ies.