You have heard about the enormity of the current investment landscape for AI many times before, but it’s still helpful to put the numbers into perspective (if for nothing else than to see how crazy this whole world is).
Jack Clark, in his newsletter Import AI, recently delved into Microsoft’s latest announcement stating that the company would invest $80 billion in AI in 2025 alone. For perspective:
For comparison, the James Webb telescope cost $10bn, so Microsoft is spending eight James Webb telescopes in one year just on AI.
For a further comparison, people think the long-in-development ITER fusion reactor will cost between $40bn and $70bn once developed (and it’s shaping up to be a 20-30 year project), so Microsoft is spending more than the sum total of humanity’s biggest fusion bet in one year on AI.
The US’s national defense budget is on the order of ~$850bn, so Microsoft is basically spending ‘a little under a tenth of the annual US military and IC budget’ just on AI.
This is better be worth it…
