There is a panic because the free lunch of more data is projected to end around mid-2027 and the open-source models are catching up with distillation, and all labs are sitting on debt and valuation that is impossible to fulfill even if they were alone in the market, so you essentially need either:

1) a breakthrough in performance/learning/model

2) regulatory capture to ensure open source models can be labelled as dangerous and banned so you can set the market rules yourself

Only one of the above is risk-free, and just a question of capital/lobbying rather than a "maybe".