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Jess Weatherbed
2026 AI investments will cost more than the Moon landing.

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are planning to spend $670 billion on AI infrastructure this year, more than some of the biggest capital efforts in US history by percentage of gross domestic product. It’s dwarfed only by the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the US.

A graph taken from The Wall Streey Journal showing spending as percentage of annual average GDP.
The 2026 spend on AI alone is bigger than the entire 1850s railroad expansion and the Apollo space program.
Graph by The Wall Street Journal
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