Dwarkesh x Dylan Patel: Anthropic and OpenAI on track to control most usable FLOPs
scaling01 · x · 2026-08-25
Dwarkesh Patel chats with Dylan Patel (SemiAnalysis) about AI lab economics over the next few years.
Key points:
- As RSI draws near, the shift moves from inference to training; Anthropic and OpenAI are on track to control most of the world's usable FLOPs within a few years, because they monetize compute better and can outbid everyone.
- They debate whether the >$10T of total AI capex by decade-end could trigger a sovereign debt crisis — hyperscaler debt raising interest rates, driving non-AI-exposed countries into bankruptcy and crashing non-AI equities.
- Unresolved: whether anything can counter the forces barrelling toward centralization — training economies of scale, compute scarcity, and eventually continual learning and RSI.
Related event: Dylan Patel: Two Labs Will Dominate Global Compute and Labor(2 posts)→
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