This assumes any research gains last. In practice it seems like none of the frontier companies can keep much of their "secret sauce" secret for very long.

If company X has a better model than company Y, do you use it? Well, that depends: will Y take two years to catch up? If so yeah, you buy X.

But if Y is just as good a few months later, you purchase based on other factors, because you know you can live without the brilliant research X is doing ... since you'll have it soon enough.