It is unclear. Everyday I seem to read contradictory headlines about whether or not inference is profitable.

If inference has significant profitability and you're the only game in town, you could do really well.

But without regulation, as a commodity, the margin on inference approaches zero.

None of this even speaks to recouping the R&D costs it takes to stay competitive. If they're not able to pull up the ladder, these frontier model companies could have a really bad time.

There are profit margins on inference from what I understand. However the hefty training costs obviously make it a money losing operation.

It's still technically a profit margin if it's less than zero...

The ones they hoped for.

Perhaps P/E ratios?