Mainly because energy and data centers are both expensive and companies want to use as little as possible of both - especially on the energy side. OpenAI isn't exactly profitable. There is a reason companies like Microsoft release smaller models like Phi-2 that can be run on individual devices rather than data centers.

Is the insinuation here that the AI industry is unregulated? Because I'm not against regulations that would drive these improvements.

I think it's exactly what I'm thinking about, unless I'm missing something specific that you'd like to put forward?

If I own a bottled drinks company and the energy cost is 10p a bottle but a new, more efficient process is invented that would lower my energy cost to 5p a bottle, that's going to be looking like a wise investment to make. A few pence over several thousand products adds up pretty quickly.

I could either pocket the difference as extra profit, lower my unit price to the consumer to make my product more competitive in the market, or a bit of both.