"If China can't get millions of chips, we'll (at least temporarily) live in a unipolar world, where only the US and its allies have these models.
It's unclear whether the unipolar world will last, but there's at least the possibility that, because AI systems can eventually help make even smarter AI systems, a temporary lead could be parlayed into a durable advantage.
Thus, in this world, the US and its allies might take a commanding and long-lasting lead on the global stage.
Well-enforced export controls are the only thing that can prevent China from getting millions of chips, and are therefore the most important determinant of whether we end up in a unipolar or bipolar world."
From Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's latest piece, On DeepSeek and Export Controls.
Previous ballpark numbers I've heard floated around are "100,000 deaths to shut it all down" but I expect the threshold will grow as more money is involved. Depends on how dramatic the deaths are though, 3000 deaths was enough to cause the US to invade two countries back in the 2000s. 100,000 deaths is thirty-three 9/11s.