Revmag

Passage of time and less time overall

Hard to comment given the recent political changes happening, might get a more concrete view after Trump comes in.

So far, following the recent activity, Assad's control over Syria might enable them to get control back ( and also adding how Trump administration sees these things as).

Good point by @DKC 

"Attempts to rehabilitate Assad are picking up steam. Several European countries — including Italy, Hungary and Greece — are keen to abandon the current policy of isolation. They want to return Syrian refugees to the country despite the unwillingness of the regime to pursue genuine reconciliation. They hope that in exchange for financial support and political cover, Assad will agree to allow back large numbers of refugees living not just in Europe but also in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. " 

Oil money has been coming in, so chances of this has reduced considerably. And no recent news as such which indicate so.

If we go purely by numbers, so 6 tests overall.
And NK and US are involved in this game theoretical model of who comes across as strong and playing the cards right and have done actions to denote this too, like Trump's "fire and fury comment."

"But to a theorist, tough talk could be the smart play. Powell told me that Trump’s bluster could be useful, since there’s no other way for him to signal to the North Koreans how serious he is about stopping them from threatening the U.S. with a nuclear strike. “If you’re trying to signal credibility to the North Koreans, the way you would signal credibility is by making it more costly for you to back down.” Trump’s painting himself into a corner, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing to do. " 
"We often hear that Kim Jong Un, for example, is a madman — “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that,” Trump once told the president of the Philippines."

Beautiful explorable telling things from a game theory pov : 
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-to-win-a-nuclear-standoff/

China is pushing fast for this, but given the challenges ahead and the rate at which development is happening in this sector.
Some of the top models are by OpenAI, X, Anthropic,  Llama, and one Chinese model is getting closer.

But given the exports control by US in supplying chips to China, that can slow things down a bit, but a lot can happen in the next 12 months.
But also given the fact the majority of voters are based in the West, that can also add some biasness to this.

So,  keep stats a bit low for now majorly coz :
1) First-movers advantage 
2) chips restriction on China
3) Majority of voters based in West

Given the technology already exists, but it is so difficult to make( only 1 company can make these machines), and US's grip on this and to not export technology to China makes it a bit hard. But the timeline is quite significant, a lot of policy changes can happen in the meanwhile and given China's history of stealing US patents ( https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/3871875-congress-should-investigate-chinese-ip-theft/ ). 

Things can very well change