- This tweet shows it as a percentage of US GDP:
https://x.com/paulg/status/2045120274551423142
Makes it a little less dramatic. But also shows what a big **'n deal the railroads were!
by lukeschlather
6 subcomments
- This seems like a total category error. The Railroads are the only example that actually seems comparable, in being an infrastructure build out that's mostly done by a variety of private companies. Examples of things that would be worth comparing to the datacenter boom are factory construction and utilities (electrification in the first half of the 20th century, running water, gas pipes.)
- There's a pretty big missing case in this comparison: nuclear weapons.
The US spent ~$12 trillion in ~2024 dollars on nuclear weapons between 1940 and 1996, and the vast majority of that spending was in the 1950s and early 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_...
by operatingthetan
2 subcomments
- Is this an appropriate spend and risk? I'm starting to feel as if we have been collectively glamoured by AI and are not making sound decisions on this.
by spprashant
4 subcomments
- I think all misgivings about AI would go away fast, if it solved one important problem for humanity. Carbon nanotubes for space elevators, sustainable nuclear fusion, or something in that ilk.
- Justin Lebar (he built xla compiler and worked at OpenAI) has an amazing talk about this subject https://youtu.be/cyJU32ivIlk?si=gYuHtzMJIvaSqcht
- https://xcancel.com/finmoorhouse/status/2044933442236776794
- Is this _actual_ spend? Like dollars actually changing hands?
Or is this "we said we are going to invest $X"? What about the circular agreements?
- Does anyone know what's included in "datacenter capex"? In particular, does that include spending for associated power generation? Because whether or not the AI craze pans out, if we've built a whole bunch of power plants (and especially solar, wind, hydro, etc) that would be a big win.
by danielmarkbruce
0 subcomment
- It's not a project. It's just a lot of money being spent on compute across hundreds/thousands of similar projects.
An analogy would be "all the money spent on transportation infra" over some period of time.
- Just for context, Amazon+Microsoft+Alphabet+Meta+Oracle total revenue for the 5 years ending in 2025 was...
~$6.5 trillion
by philip1209
0 subcomment
- Would love to see Apple’s china investment on this chart.
- Adjusted for inflation?
edit - sorry, it is in fact adjusted, text is kinda hard to see
by throwaway27448
4 subcomments
- Further evidence that the US, for whatever reason, lacks basic ability to rationally use resources.
- I really dislike the term hyperscaler. Comes off very insincere. They came up with it themselves, didn't they? What's the official definition supposed to be now? Companies that are setting up as many GPU/TPU server clusters as possible for a demand that's yet to exist?
by uejfiweun
1 subcomments
- Does anyone have any plans for what to do with all these chips and things once they are obsolete? I can't imagine they are all just going to go to some scrap heap.
- Not if you include tax breaks as mega projects
- as of november last year, data centre capex was only 60% of their revenues. which provides the bussiness justification to increase investment further
- We could have had a space elevator by now.
- only 20% of health care spending!
by arisAlexis
1 subcomments
- Because this is the last invention of man and they realize this
by SpicyLemonZest
0 subcomment
- Gentle reminder that the cost of producing well-formatted graphs is much, much lower than it used to be. We grew up in a world where the mere existence of this graph would prove that someone put a great deal of effort into making it, and now it does not. I have no specific reason to doubt the information, but if you want to have reliable epistemic practices, you can no longer treat random graphs you find on social media as presumptively true.
by thelastgallon
1 subcomments
- I wonder what percentage of GDP is spent on crypto.
- if you think datacenters are a waste (they are), wait til you hear about department of war spending
- we, the people, are the ultimate mega project, and it's showing
- Just wait until the DAOs become agentic!
- Really shows where our priorities are at as a country. SMH
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