I thought that they had an open API, and I also thought we as players and AI enthusiasts would benefit somehow from this venture, it was all rather exciting. But the research was all behind closed doors, and nothing much came of it except for some impressive demonstrations.

In case you didn't know, SC2 does have a healthy AI bot community:

https://sc2ai.net/

I am aware of that and follow it but its way behind what Alphastar was doing.