I will say that using a super efficient cloud model (deepseek for me, v4 flash is very cheap) is probably more efficient than using a local model in most cases, especially if you need strong capabilities. The question is whether your own grid or the provider's grid is more environmentally friendly (hint: china's energy mix is about 50% fossil fuels while the US's mix is around 75% fossil fuels overall)

Training is of course expensive still, but Chinese labs have all but caught up to US labs despite much lower compute resources being available to them.