my guess is that the IT department for the whole organization for x years totals $12B. Some IT manager probably mentioned to someone near the c-suite that they

my guess is that the IT department for the whole organization for x years totals $12B. Some IT manager probably mentioned to someone near the c-suite that they were working on some cool internet commerce stuff. And then after the story has been passed on and on it gets reduced down to "$12B spent on labs"