The AI boom is now consuming more money than Apollo, the ISS, and the Manhattan Project combined and its still accelerating in 2026

Date:
Thu, 07 May 2026 15:27:25 +0000

Description:
AI investment has exploded beyond the scale of historys biggest scientific megaprojects and the world is only beginning to grasp whats being built.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter According to analyses from Reuters and Stanford Universitys AI Index Report from 2025, global investment in AI has already surpassed the inflation-adjusted cost of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo moon landings, and even the International Space Station combined.

And the scary thing? Its still accelerating. Forecasts suggest AI spending could hit an astonishing $2.5 trillion in 2026 alone , driven by the massive expansion of datacenters, power systems, AI chips, and the infrastructure needed to support the increasingly powerful models AI demands. You may like Shocking emissions stats revealed for 11 planned AI data centers in the US AI boom triggers new battles over electricity infrastructure costs OpenAI and Anthropic are big winners in the doubling of AI spend Latest Videos From More compute A 33 megawatt data center (LOWER C) with closed-loop cooling system
in Vernon, California (Image credit: Getty Images / Mario Tama) It feels like Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is constantly talking about the need for more compute to keep pushing the world towards the next generation of AI, which is Advanced General Intelligence (AGI) . What he really means is more data centers, which are racks and racks of servers processing AI requests. But
data centers are incredibly expensive to build and run, especially in their power demands and cooling requirements. All this means that AI is rapidly becoming one of the largest physical infrastructure buildouts in modern history.

Gigantic server farms packed with specialized chips, enormous cooling systems and huge electricity supplies are being built worldwide right now.

Reuters report claims that investors have already poured nearly $1.6 trillion into AI since 2013. That dwarfs the roughly $36 billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Manhattan Project and even the estimated $250300 billion cost of the Apollo program. And yes, those are todays costs, adjusted for inflation.

As we know, the Apollo project put humans on the moon for the first time, and The Manhattan Project changed warfare forever. The International Space
Station took decades of international cooperation. Yet AI spending has overtaken them all in just a decade, with most of the money coming from private investors. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox
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us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. $650 billion in 2026 Of course, all the big tech companies are involved. Microsoft , Google , Amazon , Meta, et al, are still spending aggressively to build data centers. Bridgewater Associates estimates that Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft alone could collectively spend around $650 billion on AI infrastructure this year.

Some analysts are even beginning to question whether the industry can physically sustain the pace of expansion.

There is not enough people and resources to build all this, ABB CEO Morten Wierod told Reuters while discussing the scale of AI investment. What to read next The five things governments must get right to attract AI investment 5 alarming signs of an AI apocalypse on the way Why businesses are shifting
from cloud to on-prem amid the agent boom

Others are wondering whether the industry is drifting toward bubble
territory. According to the Financial Times , banks are scrambling to offload the risks associated with a huge wave of data center debt as the AI infrastructure boom pushes major lenders toward their financing limits. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle during the Apollo 11 mission, 1969 (Image credit: Getty Images / Heritage Images) Something enormous That doesnt necessarily mean the AI boom will collapse. But the scale of todays AI expansion is a stark reminder that the AI race, which is still being played out in courtrooms
right now as well as in data centers, is becoming an industrial
transformation measured not in apps, but in power grids, factories, chips, land, water, and trillions of dollars.

While humanity still hasn't managed to returned to the moon, and ambition for a manned flight to Mars seems to be waning, for better or worse, we appear to be building something enormous. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/the-ai-boom-is-now-consuming -more-money-than-apollo-the-iss-and-the-manhattan-project-combined-and-its-sti ll-accelerating-in-2026


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