By acting soon.

To train modern AIs, you need a lot of very specialized chips working together in close proximity. Shutting down AI research would involve shutting down some enormous datacenters, and stopping the creation of the highest-end specialized AI chips. These aren’t consumer laptops we’re talking about. Most people wouldn’t even notice the difference.

There are not, as of 2025, a lot of secret hidden chip factories that nobody knows about. In 2025, chips suitable for advanced AI are made by only a few manufacturers — though there are, right now, corporations trying to bring more such factories online.

Also in 2025, some key technology for core parts of high-end chip fabrication is sold by only a single manufacturer on Earth: ASML, in the Netherlands.

You can, in other words, turn off the supply at the source. But that state of affairs is not permanent — the sooner an international treaty gets signed, the better. All of this is already harder and more expensive and more dangerous than it would have been to do in 2020, or even in 2023.