The era of open AI is coming to an end. Major AI labs are increasingly restricting access to their models, imposing regional blocks, and tightening API usage. In a recent short video by AIbyteswithApoorv, the trend was outlined as a growing "Digital Iron Curtain" for artificial intelligence.
Companies are cutting off certain countries from the latest models due to data sovereignty and safety concerns. API throttling is also being used to protect computational resources from excessive public demand. As these barriers go up, the future of AI access looks increasingly fragmented and controlled.