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> AI datacenter spending is massive, but if you add it all up, it doesn't cover half of a years worth of government spending. I didn't check your math here, bu

by jkubicek 11mo ago

> AI datacenter spending is massive, but if you add it all up, it doesn't cover half of a years worth of government spending. I didn't check your math here, but if that's true, AI datacenter spending is a few orders of magnitude larger than I assumed. "massive" doesn't even begin to describe it

atmavatar 11mo ago
The US federal budget in 2024 had outlays of 6.8 trillion dollars [1]. nVidia's current market cap (nearly all AI investment) is currently 4.4 trillion dollars [2][3]. While that's hardly an exact or exhaustive accounting of AI spending, I believe it does demonstrate that AI investment is clearly in the same order of magnitude as government spending, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's actually surpassed government spending for a full year, let alone half of one. 1. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61181 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61181 2. https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NVDA:NASDAQ https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NVDA:NASDAQ 3. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/nvidias-market-cap-tops-4point5-trillion-on-ai-infrastructure-deals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/nvidias-market-cap-tops-4poi...
- diziet 11mo ago
  > NVIDIA's total annual revenue for its fiscal year 2025 (ended January 26, 2025) was $130.5 billion It is clearly not in the same order of magnitude
  - randomNumber7 11mo ago
    You need to look at turnover also.
dkural 11mo ago
Global datacenter spending across all categories (ML + everything else) is roughly 0.9 - 1.2 trillion dollars for the last three years combined, I was initially going to go for "quarter of the federal budget", but picked something I thought was more conservative to account for announced spending and 2025 etc. I pick 2022 onward for the LLM wave. In reality, solely ML driven, actual realized-to-date spending is probably about 5% of the federal budget. The big announcements will spread out over the next several years in build-out. Nonetheless, it's large enough to drive GDP growth a meaningful amount. Not large enough that redirecting it elsewhere will solve our societal problems.

atmavatar 11mo ago

The US federal budget in 2024 had outlays of 6.8 trillion dollars [1]. nVidia's current market cap (nearly all AI investment) is currently 4.4 trillion dollars [2][3]. While that's hardly an exact or exhaustive accounting of AI spending, I believe it does demonstrate that AI investment is clearly in the same order of magnitude as government spending, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's actually surpassed government spending for a full year, let alone half of one. 1. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61181 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61181 2. https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NVDA:NASDAQ https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NVDA:NASDAQ 3. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/nvidias-market-cap-tops-4point5-trillion-on-ai-infrastructure-deals.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/nvidias-market-cap-tops-4poi...

diziet 11mo ago
> NVIDIA's total annual revenue for its fiscal year 2025 (ended January 26, 2025) was $130.5 billion It is clearly not in the same order of magnitude
- randomNumber7 11mo ago
  You need to look at turnover also.

dkural 11mo ago

Global datacenter spending across all categories (ML + everything else) is roughly 0.9 - 1.2 trillion dollars for the last three years combined, I was initially going to go for "quarter of the federal budget", but picked something I thought was more conservative to account for announced spending and 2025 etc. I pick 2022 onward for the LLM wave. In reality, solely ML driven, actual realized-to-date spending is probably about 5% of the federal budget. The big announcements will spread out over the next several years in build-out. Nonetheless, it's large enough to drive GDP growth a meaningful amount. Not large enough that redirecting it elsewhere will solve our societal problems.