They have been stalled like this from the beginning of the game. This is not normal behavior. They just sit there and accumulate vast sums of BC... so it's not like they don't have the resources, just that they can't use them for normal production.
So this is weird. I started a game, and soon noticed that all but one of my neighbors weren't expanding their territory... eventually, a couple of them became unstuck and started to act normally again, but out of 9 opponents, there are still 7 that are "frozen" (one of them surrendered to another player when attacked by one of the 2 AIS that is working normally) with only their capitols and 1st colonies, can't build ships or planetary improvements, and can't research new technolog