Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects • Hacker News Board

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#191

Post by kiba » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 1:54 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #185

ezst wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reality check, they are already astoundingly meaningful and transformative AI The onus of the proof regarding their meaningful and transformative nature is on you. The largest niche LLMs have so far managed to carve for themselves is software code, with the jury still on the fence as whether the productivity needle actually moved in one direction or the other, and the other, literal jury, enshrining the fact that v…

We are in such different universes that I fear that this will not be a productive discussion; to my eyes LLMs are the most obviously socially transformative technology in my lifetime, up there with "internet" and "smartphones". You say the largest niche is software production. Okay, let's talk about that. If the jury is still out then the jury is asleep. When ChatGPT first came out - the GPT3 days, years ago, before…

You are so focused on productivity that you missed the boat on the shape of the problem.

Vibe coded app are just throwaway codes that you don't understand and can't maintain. Most of our technology isn't creating new things but incremental improvement.

You are so focused on productivity when programming 's bottleneck is never about how many features you implement but how much you can understand your codebase.

Nobody cares about your internet slops but they care about verification of facts which unfortunately require human judgement.

LLM are just a different version of library code we already have, except without quality control by default.

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#192

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

topspin wrote: post #40

chromacity wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But doesn't that overstate it in the other direction? Talking about investments in proportion to GDP back when any estimate of GDP probably wasn't a good measure of total economic output? We're talking about the period before modern finance, before income taxes, back when most labor was agricultural... Did the average person shoulder the cost of railroads more than the average taxpayer today is shouldering the cost o…

The F-35 case is interesting. Lockheed Martin can, given peak rates seen in 2025, produce a new F-35 approximately every 36 hours, as they fill orders for US allies arming themselves with F-35's. US pilot training facilities are brimming with foreign pilots. It's the most successful export fighter since the F-16 and F-4, and presently the only means US allies have to obtain operational stealth combat technology. What…

[deleted]

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#193

Post by hnthrow0287345 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

Danox wrote: post #103

delecti wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that AI will probably have bigger effects that we could possibly predict right now. But unlike past booms/bubbles, I suspect the infrastructure being built now won't be useful after it resolves. The railroads, interstate system, and dotcom fiber buildout are all still useful. AI will need to get more efficient to be useful as established technology, so the huge datacenters will be overbuilt. And almost none o…

The era of the AI data center will be brief because the models will get better and the computers will get more powerful, particularly on the desktop, laptop and phone/tablet . The transition will be like going from mainframe computers to personal computers.

No one's going to be able to afford that if you hollow out the consumer base by replacing people with AI

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#194

Post by etempleton » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

PunchyHamster wrote: post #155

delusional wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NASA spending has created a huge pile of technologies that we use day to day We're a little too early to know if that's the case here too. I do foresee a chance at a reality where AI is a dead end, but after it we have a ton of cheap GPU compute lying about, which we all rush to somehow convert into useful compute (by emulating CPU's or translating traditional algorithms into GPU oriented ones or whatever).

I think there is little chance it is a "dead end", it's here to stay but at least LLMs seem to have hit the diminishing returns curve already, despise what investors might think, and so far none of the big providers actually makes money for all that investment

I think for many, if LLMs and AI only improves marginally in the next 5-10 years it is effectively a dead end. The capital expenditure necessitates AI does something exponentially more valuable than what it does now.

I think we are saying the same thing.i just think the pull back on AI will be dramatic unless something amazing happens very soon.

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#195

Post by etempleton » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

bigfatkitten wrote: post #142

jhide wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re unclassified public cloud GPUs today , much the same as the massive industrial base of the United States was churning out harmless consumer widgets in 1939. Those widget makers happened to be reconfigurable into weapon makers, and so wartime production exploded from 2% to 40% of GDP in 5 years [1]. But the total industrial output of course didn’t expand by nearly that much. I think it’s maybe plausible that p…

The United States has almost no domestic capability to produce advanced semiconductors. There is no abundance of industrial capacity cranking out GPUs that can be quickly diverted from AI companies into weapon systems. Even if private compute was at a level of maturity where you could use it for classified workloads, knowing that the infrastructure is being managed by someone in India or China, securely getting data…

US is probably second only to Taiwan in terms of capacity to build advanced semiconductors and the gap is now closing as Intel gets back on track.

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#196

Post by sixhobbits » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

spprashant wrote: post #174

I think all misgivings about AI would go away fast, if it solved one important problem for humanity. Carbon nanotubes for space elevators, sustainable nuclear fusion, or something in that ilk.

Personalized medical treatment looks like the most promising candidate so far, would that do it for you?

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#197

Post by brookst » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #73

timmg wrote: post #3

This tweet shows it as a percentage of US GDP: https://x.com/paulg/status/2045120274551423142 Makes it a little less dramatic. But also shows what a big **'n deal the railroads were!

GDP adjustments are warranted, but it is more stark than both the estimates suggest. The megaprojects of the previous generations all had decades long depreciation schedules. Many 50-100+ year old railways, bridges, tunnels or dams and other utilities are still in active use with only minimal maintenance Amortized Y-o-Y the current spends would dwarf everything at the reported depreciation schedule of 6(!) years for…

I’m not sure tax depreciation rates are the best measure here. Those GPUs will be used for much longer than 6 years, and the returns from the businesses will be an order of magnitude longer.

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#198

Post by brookst » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

etempleton wrote: post #194

PunchyHamster wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is little chance it is a "dead end", it's here to stay but at least LLMs seem to have hit the diminishing returns curve already, despise what investors might think, and so far none of the big providers actually makes money for all that investment

I think for many, if LLMs and AI only improves marginally in the next 5-10 years it is effectively a dead end. The capital expenditure necessitates AI does something exponentially more valuable than what it does now. I think we are saying the same thing.i just think the pull back on AI will be dramatic unless something amazing happens very soon.

I just don’t see it. Both professionally and personally I’m producing so much more now. Back burner projects that weren’t worth months of my time are easily worth a few hours and $20 or whatever.

Why would I pull back?

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#199

Post by wr2 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:32 PM UTC

jamesknelson wrote: post #102

wr2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also railways would always have alternative uses at that time - e.g. logistics in warfare. What other uses do GPU's have that are critical...? lol In addition to your points, this is why I always laugh when people do backward comparisons. What characteristics do they share in common? Very little.

GPUs do have a use in warfare though. I mean, LLMs are basically offensive weapons disguised as software engineers. Sure, LLMs can kind of put together a prototype of some CRUD app, so long as it doesn’t need to be maintainable, understandable, innovative or secure. But they excel at persisting until some arbitrary well defined condition is met, and it appears to be the case that “you gain entry to system X” works we…

Imagine comparing something that has a useful life of 100+ years vs a thing that is worn out, much less durable, and needs replacing much more often and can become obselete from innovation within its own product category.

Comical. China can continue innovating on GPUs and all this existing spend to stock up on compute is a waste. Again, comical. Moreover China has energy capacity that the US does not. Meaning all those GPU's that deliver less performance per watt? Yep going in the bin.

So yeah.. carry on telling me how this is going to yield some supreme advantage lmao.

Re: Hyperscalers have already outspent most famous US megaprojects

#200

Post by brookst » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

malfist wrote: post #190

zozbot234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPUs don't really have six year lifespans, though. The hardware itself lasts far longer than that, even hardware that's been used for cryptomining in terrible makeshift setups is absolutely fine for reuse.

Each of these GPUs pull up to a kilowatt of power. The average commercial power cost is 13.4 ¢/kWh. That means running a single H100 full tilt 24/7 is a power operationing cost of $1,100 per card per year. In three years the current generation of GPUs will be 50% or more faster. In six years your talking more than 100% faster. For the same energy costs. If you're running a GPU data center on six year old GPUs, your c…

Sure. But if that fully depreciates, $1100/year GPU produces $20k of economic benefit, would you decommission it as long as there is demand?