Indeed, this very much looks like what we'll likely see from Google Earth within a decade—or perhaps half that.

I’ve seen very impressive Gaussian splatting demos of more limited urban geographies (a few city blocks) running on consumer hardware, so the reason this requires research-tier Nvidia hardware right now is probably down to LOD streaming. More optimization on that front, and this could plausibly come to Google Earth on current devices.

“What a time to be alive” indeed!

2 years tops, since the technology is there, it would be a considerable improvement to Google Maps, and Google has the required resources.