I recently talked with a PI from a well-known university lab, and asked why they were doing a startup, given the ML research problems they were working on.

They said a company was the only way to get access to the compute power they needed for that research.

A startup sounds like probably a good solution, if they get paired with the right product- and business-minded people, and together they find a winning collaboration. (Edit: Or if they get acquired rapidly in the AI boom, and negotiate the right deal to enable their research longer-term.)