It's definitely true that they've increased their revenue rapidly. But at the same time the 'scaling laws' that the labs were first built around require exponentially-scaling cost (10x flops for a fixed reduction in training loss).

If anything, a better look at the economics is a reason to look forward to one of them IPO-ing. I suspect the labs probably could cut R&D and turn a profit, but that might only work for one generation, until they get superseded by the competition.

There is no doubt that competition is what is driving unprofitability. So when people say AI can't be monetized, I laugh. Right now, foundational AI is unprofitable because of competition, not because they can't make money.