arXiv:2603.12630econ.THcs.AI2026-03

研究AI供应链中政策如何影响消费者收益,发现不同政策效果取决于算力成本高低。

The Economics of AI Supply Chain Regulation

  • 用博弈论模型分析上游模型商与下游企业间的竞争关系。
  • 当算力或数据处理成本高时,价格竞争政策最能提升消费者收益。
  • 质量竞争政策始终有利,但会牺牲下游企业利润,适合关注长期创新的政策制定者。

基础模型的兴起催生了AI供应链,上游模型提供商向下游企业提供建模和推理服务。下游企业支付费用使用其计算资源对模型进行微调,利用专有数据实现协同创新,提升模型质量。随着对模型商和下游企业攫取过多消费者剩余的担忧及监管措施增加,本文构建包含一个提供方和两个竞争下游企业的博弈模型,分析政策干预对AI供应链中消费者剩余的影响。结果表明:在算力或数据预处理成本较高时,促进下游市场价格竞争的政策(即价格竞争型政策)可显著提升消费者剩余;而算力补贴仅在成本较低时有效,二者具有互补性。相反,促进质量竞争的政策(质量竞争型政策)始终能提高消费者剩余。此外,在价格竞争型政策或算力补贴下,提供方与下游企业均能获得更高利润并实现消费者收益增长,形成三方共赢。但在质量竞争型政策下,提供方利润上升,下游企业利润下降。随着算力成本下降,价格竞争型政策的有效性可能减弱,而算力补贴则可能由无效转为有效。这些发现为推动经济高效且社会有益的AI供应链提供了政策参考。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

The rise of foundation models has driven the emergence of AI supply chains, where upstream foundation model providers offer fine-tuning and inference services to downstream firms developing domain-specific applications. Downstream firms pay providers to use their computing infrastructure to fine-tune models with proprietary data, creating a co-creation dynamic that enhances model quality. Amid concerns that foundation model providers and downstream firms may capture excessive consumer surplus, along with increasing regulatory measures, this study employs a game-theoretic model involving a provider and two competing downstream firms to analyze how policy interventions affect consumer surplus in the AI supply chain. Our analysis shows that policies promoting price competition in downstream markets (i.e., pro-price-competitive policies) boost consumer surplus only when compute or data preprocessing costs are high, while compute subsidies are effective only when these costs are low, suggesting these policies complement each other. In contrast, policies promoting quality competition in downstream markets (i.e., pro-quality-competitive policies) always improve consumer surplus. We also find that under pro-price-competitive policies or compute subsidies, both the provider and downstream firms can achieve higher profits along with greater consumer surplus, creating a win-win-win outcome. However, pro-quality-competitive policies increase the provider's profits while reducing those of downstream firms. Finally, as compute costs decline, pro-price-competitive policies may lose their effectiveness, whereas compute subsidies may shift from ineffective to effective. These findings offer insights for policymakers seeking to foster AI supply chains that are economically efficient and socially beneficial.

AI供应链政策分析博弈论消费者福利

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