Government and regulation are bigger drivers of innovation than competition: discuss

In some industries, entire business models can be up-ended by regulatory changes and new businesses can emerge as a result. Eg the impact of various different data protection and privacy related laws which have been enacted in recent years. Government owned defense research institutes are an incubator of new technologies which eventually ‘trickle down’ to consumer applications. For example, emergent AI technology currently used by the military before civilian applications become cost effective / viable. We discuss how companies can best prosper in this context.