It's stated in many places that inference is profitable (margin 70% to 90%), only research is expensive. Hyperscalers are burning through their cashflow training new models while inference-only providers are printing money.
If all the research went away tomorrow, people are still going to sell inference at current prices or higher. There are already open weights competitive with proprietary models. There will be no lost capability.
If businesses find inference useful today then it doesn't have to drastically improve in a short timeframe anymore. History is full of inventions which became "good enough" and didn't improve much or at all for a long time.
eg: Western society runs on radial tyres which have seen only marginal improvements for the last 50 years.
(yes there have been some small improvements in compounds, tread patterns, TPMS, etc. hardly drastic revolutionary changes to the tyre industry)
If all the research went away tomorrow, people are still going to sell inference at current prices or higher. There are already open weights competitive with proprietary models. There will be no lost capability.
If businesses find inference useful today then it doesn't have to drastically improve in a short timeframe anymore. History is full of inventions which became "good enough" and didn't improve much or at all for a long time.
eg: Western society runs on radial tyres which have seen only marginal improvements for the last 50 years.
(yes there have been some small improvements in compounds, tread patterns, TPMS, etc. hardly drastic revolutionary changes to the tyre industry)