I think your analysis is spot on, based on my expertise of "reading too much hacker news since every day since March 2023". This Bain report[1] barely mentions "Independent Software Vendors" and when they do it's clearly an afterthought, and the only software focused takes I can find are[2] extremely speculative, e.g.
"For every dollar invested in hardware, we expect 8-to-20 times the amount to be spent on software... While the initial wave of AI investment lays the foundational infrastructure, the next wave is clearly set to capitalise on the burgeoning AI software market."
Regardless, I think this makes a lot of sense; there's no clear scientific consensus on the path forward for these models other than "keep going?", so building out preparatory infrastructure is seen as the clear, safe move. As the common refrain goes: "in a gold rush, sell shovels!"
As a big believer in the upcoming cognitive era of software and society, I would only add a short bit onto the end of that saying: "...until the hydraulic mining cannons[3] come online."
[1] https://www.bain.com/insights/ais-trillion-dollar-opportunit...
[2] https://www.privatebankerinternational.com/comment/is-ai-sof...
>As the common refrain goes: "in a gold rush, sell shovels!"
What happens when everyone constructs a shovel factory, the shovels become dirt cheap, but there are no buyers?