6 ms·

For fun, I calculated how this stacks up against other humanity-scale mega projects. Mega Project Rankings (USD Inflation Adjusted) The New Deal: $1T, Inters

by wujerry2000 2y ago

For fun, I calculated how this stacks up against other humanity-scale mega projects. Mega Project Rankings (USD Inflation Adjusted) The New Deal: $1T, Interstate Highway System: $618B, OpenAI Stargate: $500B, The Apollo Project: $278B, International Space Station: $180B, South-North Water Transfer: $106B, The Channel Tunnel: $31B, Manhattan Project: $30B Insane Stuff.

fastball 2y ago
Neom: $1.5T
- moralestapia 2y ago
  But that one's imaginary.
  - fastball 2y ago
    Is it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYimVfnGNGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYimVfnGNGY https://skift.com/2024/08/07/saudi-takes-2-million-photos-of-neom-in-ground-x-project-to-build-investor-trust/ https://skift.com/2024/08/07/saudi-takes-2-million-photos-of...
    - SeanAnderson 2y ago
      "Unnamed sources told Bloomberg in April that The Line is scaling back from 170 kilometers long to just 2.4 kilometers, with the rest of the length to be completed after 2030. Neom expects The Line to be finished by 2045 now, 15 years later than initially planned." It doesn't look great so far :)
      - fastball 2y ago
        The plan was never for 170km of The Line to be finished by 2030. The original plan was for 5km. And yes, recent reports are that they've scaled back their ambitions to half that by 2030. However: 1. That has no bearing on how much they actually spend, which is what was being discussed and 2. Neom is much more than just The Line. As you can see from the YouTube link I posted, Sindalah seems to be on track to open this year, which is part of Neom. So while Neom overall might be behind schedule (and The Line or other components may never open), it is clearly not an "imaginary" project given that parts of it will open soon.
        moralestapia 2y ago
        Weak argument. If that were the case then Stargate is already a thing because OpenAI must have a data center somewhere already. And yes, the plan was for it to be 170km, since it was announced.
        fastball 2y ago
        It's not an "argument", it is a fact. Neom has many parts, one or more of those parts are finished. It is not an "imaginary" project, period. An imaginary project does not get to the construction phase. You cannot call this imaginary without significantly and unilaterally re-defining the meaning of that word. From there, The Line =/= Neom. That said, 170km is still the plan for The Line – the first segment was supposed to be 5km by 2030, now it is 2.5km by 2030. And again, them not building as much as they said does not mean it is cheaper (cost is what we're discussing, after all). If anything it means they are already over budget. Stargate is a new company, so OpenAI (a different company) having data centers does not seem relevant. Also, I do not think OpenAI actually does own any data centers – for the most part they've been using Azure infra AFAIK. But I did not claim that Stargate was imaginary, so I am unsure how this is a relevant point for you to make.
  - krick 2y ago
    Maybe, but so is Stargate Project so far.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
pinot 2y ago
Those are all public projects except for one..
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- alpb 2y ago
  Yeah, I'm not sure why we're pretending this will benefit the public. The only benefit is that it will create employment, and datacenter jobs are among the lowest paid tech workers in the industry.
fooker 2y ago
Is this inflation adjusted?
- boxed 2y ago
  It says so at least
krick 2y ago
It's unfair, because we are talking in the hindsight about everything but Project Stargate, and it's also just your list (and I don't know what others could add to it) but it got me thinking. Manhattan Project goal is to make a powerful bomb. Apollo is to get to the Moon before soviets do (so, because of hubris, but still there is a concrete goal). South-North Water Transfer is pretty much terraforming, and others are mostly roads. I mean, it's all kinda understandable. And Stargate Project is... what exactly? What is the goal? To make Altman richer, or is there any more or less concrete goal to achieve? Also, few items for comparison, that I googled while thinking about it: - Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository: $96B - ITER: $65B - Hubble Space Telescope: $16B - JWST: $11B - LHC: $10B Sources: https://jameswebbtracker.com/jwst/budget https://jameswebbtracker.com/jwst/budget https://blogfusion.tech/worlds-most-expensive-experiments/ https://blogfusion.tech/worlds-most-expensive-experiments/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/faqs/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/faqs/
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >What is the goal? Be the definitive first past the post in the budding "AI" industry. Why? He who wins first writes the rules. For an obvious example: The aviation industry uses feets and knots instead of metres because the US invented and commercialized aviation. Another obvious example: Computers all speak ASCII (read: English) and even Unicode is based on ASCII because the US and UK commercialized computers. If you want to write the rules you must win first, it is an absolute requirement. Runner-ups and below only get to obey the rules.
  - frontalier 2y ago
    okay, but what advantages do these rules bring to the winner? what would these look like in this context? i guess what i'm asking is: what was the practical advantage of ascii or feet and knots that made them so important?
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      >what advantages do these rules bring to the winner? An almost absolute incumbency advantage. >what was the practical advantage of ascii or feet and knots Familiarity. Americans and Britons speak English, and they wrote the rules in English. Everyone else after the fact needs to read English or GTFO. Alternatively, think of it like this: Nvidia was the first to commercialize "AI" with CUDA. Now everyone in "AI" must speak CUDA or be irrelevant. He who wins first writes the rules, runner-ups and below obey the rules. This is why America and China are fiercely competing to be the first past the post so one of them will write the rules. This is why Japan and Europe insist they will write the rules, nevermind the fact they aren't even in the race (read: they won't write the rules).
gizmondo 2y ago
Building a lot of compute will likely end up more useful than Apollo & ISS, which were vanity projects.
maxglute 2y ago
Also note compute deprecates much faster than multi decade infra projects with chance of obsolecence. If deepseek keeps pace with releasing near SOTA models, those compute centres are going to have hard time recooping value / return on capital.

fastball 2y ago

Neom: $1.5T

moralestapia 2y ago
But that one's imaginary.
- fastball 2y ago
  Is it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYimVfnGNGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYimVfnGNGY https://skift.com/2024/08/07/saudi-takes-2-million-photos-of-neom-in-ground-x-project-to-build-investor-trust/ https://skift.com/2024/08/07/saudi-takes-2-million-photos-of...
  - SeanAnderson 2y ago
    "Unnamed sources told Bloomberg in April that The Line is scaling back from 170 kilometers long to just 2.4 kilometers, with the rest of the length to be completed after 2030. Neom expects The Line to be finished by 2045 now, 15 years later than initially planned." It doesn't look great so far :)
    - fastball 2y ago
      The plan was never for 170km of The Line to be finished by 2030. The original plan was for 5km. And yes, recent reports are that they've scaled back their ambitions to half that by 2030. However: 1. That has no bearing on how much they actually spend, which is what was being discussed and 2. Neom is much more than just The Line. As you can see from the YouTube link I posted, Sindalah seems to be on track to open this year, which is part of Neom. So while Neom overall might be behind schedule (and The Line or other components may never open), it is clearly not an "imaginary" project given that parts of it will open soon.
      - moralestapia 2y ago
        Weak argument. If that were the case then Stargate is already a thing because OpenAI must have a data center somewhere already. And yes, the plan was for it to be 170km, since it was announced.
        fastball 2y ago
        It's not an "argument", it is a fact. Neom has many parts, one or more of those parts are finished. It is not an "imaginary" project, period. An imaginary project does not get to the construction phase. You cannot call this imaginary without significantly and unilaterally re-defining the meaning of that word. From there, The Line =/= Neom. That said, 170km is still the plan for The Line – the first segment was supposed to be 5km by 2030, now it is 2.5km by 2030. And again, them not building as much as they said does not mean it is cheaper (cost is what we're discussing, after all). If anything it means they are already over budget. Stargate is a new company, so OpenAI (a different company) having data centers does not seem relevant. Also, I do not think OpenAI actually does own any data centers – for the most part they've been using Azure infra AFAIK. But I did not claim that Stargate was imaginary, so I am unsure how this is a relevant point for you to make.
- krick 2y ago
  Maybe, but so is Stargate Project so far.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

pinot 2y ago

Those are all public projects except for one..

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
alpb 2y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure why we're pretending this will benefit the public. The only benefit is that it will create employment, and datacenter jobs are among the lowest paid tech workers in the industry.

fooker 2y ago

Is this inflation adjusted?

boxed 2y ago
It says so at least

krick 2y ago

It's unfair, because we are talking in the hindsight about everything but Project Stargate, and it's also just your list (and I don't know what others could add to it) but it got me thinking. Manhattan Project goal is to make a powerful bomb. Apollo is to get to the Moon before soviets do (so, because of hubris, but still there is a concrete goal). South-North Water Transfer is pretty much terraforming, and others are mostly roads. I mean, it's all kinda understandable. And Stargate Project is... what exactly? What is the goal? To make Altman richer, or is there any more or less concrete goal to achieve? Also, few items for comparison, that I googled while thinking about it: - Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository: $96B - ITER: $65B - Hubble Space Telescope: $16B - JWST: $11B - LHC: $10B Sources: https://jameswebbtracker.com/jwst/budget https://jameswebbtracker.com/jwst/budget https://blogfusion.tech/worlds-most-expensive-experiments/ https://blogfusion.tech/worlds-most-expensive-experiments/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/faqs/ https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/faqs/

Dalewyn 2y ago
>What is the goal? Be the definitive first past the post in the budding "AI" industry. Why? He who wins first writes the rules. For an obvious example: The aviation industry uses feets and knots instead of metres because the US invented and commercialized aviation. Another obvious example: Computers all speak ASCII (read: English) and even Unicode is based on ASCII because the US and UK commercialized computers. If you want to write the rules you must win first, it is an absolute requirement. Runner-ups and below only get to obey the rules.
- frontalier 2y ago
  okay, but what advantages do these rules bring to the winner? what would these look like in this context? i guess what i'm asking is: what was the practical advantage of ascii or feet and knots that made them so important?
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >what advantages do these rules bring to the winner? An almost absolute incumbency advantage. >what was the practical advantage of ascii or feet and knots Familiarity. Americans and Britons speak English, and they wrote the rules in English. Everyone else after the fact needs to read English or GTFO. Alternatively, think of it like this: Nvidia was the first to commercialize "AI" with CUDA. Now everyone in "AI" must speak CUDA or be irrelevant. He who wins first writes the rules, runner-ups and below obey the rules. This is why America and China are fiercely competing to be the first past the post so one of them will write the rules. This is why Japan and Europe insist they will write the rules, nevermind the fact they aren't even in the race (read: they won't write the rules).

gizmondo 2y ago

Building a lot of compute will likely end up more useful than Apollo & ISS, which were vanity projects.

maxglute 2y ago

Also note compute deprecates much faster than multi decade infra projects with chance of obsolecence. If deepseek keeps pace with releasing near SOTA models, those compute centres are going to have hard time recooping value / return on capital.