years standardised on one stack
entry-cost lever
How AI stack lock-in turns a membership choice into a whole-ecosystem commitment AI stack lock-in: membership = ecosystem commitment membership choice US stack China stack chip Nvidia CUDA model closed frontier cloud US cloud application US apps chip Ascend CANN model open-weight cloud China cloud application China apps code rewrite access closed blocked blocked switching cost 2 yr Portable early switch crossable Locked in stack consolidated China: open-weight low cost for new members US: ex-ante exclusion raises rival entry cost excluded Incompatibility and enforcement are contested - shown as tendency, not certainty.