  While Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are progressing fast,
compliance costs have become a huge financial burden for AI startups, which are
already constrained on research & development budgets. This situation creates a
compliance trap, as many AI startups are not financially prepared to cope with
a broad spectrum of regulatory requirements. Particularly, the complex and
varying regulatory processes across the globe subtly give advantages to
well-established and resourceful technology firms over resource-constrained AI
startups [1]. The continuation of this trend may phase out the majority of AI
startups and lead to giant technology firms' monopolies of AI technologies. To
demonstrate the reality of the compliance trap, from a field deployment
perspective, we delve into the details of compliance costs of AI commercial
operations.
