Three companies control two-thirds of global cloud infrastructure. That’s not a market. It’s a cartel.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have positioned themselves as gatekeepers to humanity’s most transformative technology, deciding who gets access to AI and at what price. They’ve built walls around compute resources, locked away advanced models, and turned innovation into a permission-based system where progress depends on corporate approval.
But something remarkable is happening outside their walled gardens. A parallel AI ecosystem is emerging — one that’s open, uncensorable, and dramatically cheaper. Decentralized AI networks are proving that intelligence doesn’t need to flow through Silicon Valley’s servers. The democratization of AI has already begun.
The Permission Problem
Big Tech’s AI monopoly operates through control of three critical resources: compute, models, and data. Without these, innovation stalls. With them concentrated in so few hands, progress becomes a privilege granted by corporations rather than a right accessible to all.
This centralized control creates cascading effects throughout the ecosystem. Universities can’t compete with corporate research labs that monopolize talent with million-dollar packages. Startups burn through funding on compute costs instead of innovation. Entire regions remain excluded from AI advancement simply because they lack proximity to data centers or relationships with cloud providers.
Open Source Strikes Back
The counterrevolution started quietly. Mistral, a French AI company, released a model matching GPT-3.5’s performance at a fraction of the training cost — and made it completely open source. Meta’s LLaMA models, initially leaked and then officially released, spawned thousands of fine-tuned variants that outperform proprietary alternatives in specialized tasks. Suddenly, cutting-edge AI wasn’t exclusively available through corporate APIs.
These open models shatter the permission paradigm. Any developer can download, modify, and deploy them without asking Silicon Valley for approval. The ecosystem exploded with innovation as researchers built specialized models for medicine, law, education, and countless other domains — all without paying OpenAI’s toll or accepting Google’s ter
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Author: Tory Green
