Essay: AI's most lasting wealth will accrue outside the labs

In The Commanding Heights, Will Manidis and Joe Roberts argue that as frontier models become commodities, wealth goes to the positions AI must pass through.[1]

They argue only America and China can keep building frontier models, splitting AI into commercial and sovereign tiers.[1]

They call the dollar America’s greatest AI-age power, via a global stablecoin Neo-Dollar whose channel owners collect a toll.[1]

They cite Epoch AI: the cost of a given level of AI performance falls ~13x a year. AI capex is seen at ~$800 billion in 2026.[1][2][3]