Electricians are getting harder to find, and some construction projects are on hold. Smartphones are expected to get pricier for potentially years to come. And promising innovations are being starved of investment funding.
Those are just some of the domino effects from the technology industry’s insatiable spending on artificial intelligence, which is diverting resources and attention from other sectors of the economy.
Five leading public AI companies are collectively on track to spend about $700 billion this year on big-ticket projects, as they splurge on building and outfitting data centers stuffed with powerful computer chips to turbocharge AI calculations. That outlay by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle will nearly double what they spent in 2025 and be equal to three-quarters of the recent annual budget for the U.S. military. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
C1rc1es on
It’s a race with some pretty world changing stakes for the winner(s).
Character-Education3 on
The AI ~~boom~~ hype machine is so big its causing shortages everywhere else.
It’s good to call a thing what it is.
niberungvalesti on
The American economy has effectively put all its eggs in one basket. That’s not concerning or anything nope. /s
Silpher9 on
Although is sucks for people who are negatively impacted by this I’m very curious where the AI race is leading us to. It’s been extremely helpful in my live at least. I’ve been able to solve a lot of problems I had with projects that were just too difficult before.
KE55 on
And so much of that AI power seems to be wasted on churning out AI slop and dumb fake videos for social media. I wish they could somehow block that.
hardworkinglatinx on
If that’s what it takes for AI to improve, then so be it.
daviper87 on
The biggest shortage is profit.
Mag7 combined AI profits since 2022:
0
AndyTheSane on
Roughly speaking, that’s the Apollo program 3 times over.
9 Comments
Electricians are getting harder to find, and some construction projects are on hold. Smartphones are expected to get pricier for potentially years to come. And promising innovations are being starved of investment funding.
Those are just some of the domino effects from the technology industry’s insatiable spending on artificial intelligence, which is diverting resources and attention from other sectors of the economy.
Five leading public AI companies are collectively on track to spend about $700 billion this year on big-ticket projects, as they splurge on building and outfitting data centers stuffed with powerful computer chips to turbocharge AI calculations. That outlay by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle will nearly double what they spent in 2025 and be equal to three-quarters of the recent annual budget for the U.S. military. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
It’s a race with some pretty world changing stakes for the winner(s).
The AI ~~boom~~ hype machine is so big its causing shortages everywhere else.
It’s good to call a thing what it is.
The American economy has effectively put all its eggs in one basket. That’s not concerning or anything nope. /s
Although is sucks for people who are negatively impacted by this I’m very curious where the AI race is leading us to. It’s been extremely helpful in my live at least. I’ve been able to solve a lot of problems I had with projects that were just too difficult before.
And so much of that AI power seems to be wasted on churning out AI slop and dumb fake videos for social media. I wish they could somehow block that.
If that’s what it takes for AI to improve, then so be it.
The biggest shortage is profit.
Mag7 combined AI profits since 2022:
0
Roughly speaking, that’s the Apollo program 3 times over.