The bottleneck right now isn't making hardware more powerful, it's manufacturing it fast enough. Hardware right now is expensive because of scarcity, and those

The bottleneck right now isn't making hardware more powerful, it's manufacturing it fast enough. Hardware right now is expensive because of scarcity, and those with a monopoly on it have no incentive to change that. The Chinese would love to produce AI hardware much cheaper, but are blocked from doing so because US sanctions stop a Dutch company from selling them the machines capable of doing so. Coincidentally the companies with a monopoly happen to be in the US.