Opinions can vary on what is "interesting". Personally, I find LLMs extremely boring from a scientific standpoint. If they turn out to be a product, they could be extremely valuable, but if they fail in the marketplace, they don't offer any interesting insights into the nature of the universe of computer science. LLMs are a technology of engineering, not science.
What is clear though is that none of that "interesting" AI stuff would exist without the mountains of research done by academic institutions. Google may have cemented "Attention" as a concept in LLM style AI, but the math to do that didn't come from nowhere. That math isn't thought of as a "technology" because it's not valuable without some product development. Academic institutions don't do that product development. That's precisely what makes you think they're being "beaten"
OpenAI and DeepSeek are not beating academic institutions in any metric the academic institutions should care about. That's just true.
What is clear though is that none of that "interesting" AI stuff would exist without the mountains of research done by academic institutions. Google may have cemented "Attention" as a concept in LLM style AI, but the math to do that didn't come from nowhere. That math isn't thought of as a "technology" because it's not valuable without some product development. Academic institutions don't do that product development. That's precisely what makes you think they're being "beaten"
OpenAI and DeepSeek are not beating academic institutions in any metric the academic institutions should care about. That's just true.