The Scale of the AI Buildout

We hear constant rumblings about the massive data-center buildouts currently underway. Particularly in the United States, and particularly for AI. By all accounts, this is an infrastructure project of colossal proportions; I have even heard it suggested that it is the main contributor to our GDP.

But, how substantial is this boom? How does it compare to mega-projects of the past? Right now, the scale of what is happening is hard to grasp, and it is difficult to cast judgement on this moment in time. History will offer us perspective. But, only time will tell us how this will play out.

(To ensure a fair comparison, all dollar amounts in this post have been adjusted for 2025 inflation.)

When I reach for comparisons, two recent industrial buildouts stand out. In the late 90's, the fiber-optic boom, a global nervous system of glass was constructed beneath our cities and oceans. Before that, starting in the 50's, came the US Interstate Highway System. Roads and internet. They terraformed the planet and reshaped society. Our lives would be unrecognizable without them. So, how does the current AI buildout measure up to the massive and transformative multi-decade projects of the past?

Let's start with the Interstate Highway System (IHS). Generally considered one of the great mega-projects of history. Spanning a total length of over 50,000 miles and connecting every major city across the US (even in Hawaii and Alaska), it fulfilled the Eisenhower administration's promise of a more prosperous, mobile, and unified America.

The project began with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Construction took 36 years, ending in 1992. Most of those reading this have never known a world without the IHS; it is a defining feature of our time. Yet, remarkably it was finished just over 30 years ago. The price tag? Estimates vary, but the construction cost lands at about $634 billion.

The impact of the IHS can't be overstated. It birthed the trucking industry. It invented the modern suburb. It enabled sprawling housing far from city centers. Highways cemented an auto-centric lifestyle that made mass transit unsustainable and walking obsolete. (A shift often cited as a key driver of the obesity epidemic) Economically the impacts were profound. In 1955 the Fortune 500 list was dominated by industrial giants like US Steel. Highways unlocked the American south, which previously lacked a viable transport network. And, they changed the physics of business, favoring those who mastered logistics and "just-in-time" delivery. This fueled the rise of logistic giants like Walmart and Amazon, foreign manufactures like Toyota, conglomerates like Google and more.

This highlights a specific kind of impact: some buildouts so throughly transform society (and terraform the earth) that by the time they are complete, the world that existed before them has vanished from our collective imagination.

Next, let's turn to the global fiber-optic buildout. We tend to think of the internet as a cloud, but it has physicality, it's tangibly real. It consists of glass cables buried underneath cities and draped across the ocean floor. The scale is staggering: there is enough fiber under our cities to wrap around the earth 1500 times. And enough in the ocean to wrap it another 40. Today, 99% of all internet data travels through these cables. All cell-towers, satellites, and WiFi networks aggregate to that last 1%. It wasn't always like this. About 30 years ago almost none of this existed. In fact, most of this fiber infrastructure was built by telecom companies in a frantic 5 year window between 1996 and 2001 at the height of the telecom bubble. The bill came to roughly $1 trillion.

If the IHS terraformed the American landscape - fiber reconfigured the global economy. Before the buildout, global internet traffic hovered around 180 terabytes per month. That may sound like a lot. But, today it exceeds 500 exabytes - a 2.7-million-fold increase. In 1998, moving one megabit of data cost about $1,200. Today, it costs sixteen cents. (A 99% reduction in cost) With infrastructure comes capability. As the cost of communication collapsed to near zero, entire industries were born. Factories in Shenzhen could be managed from California in real time. This digital backbone made modern globalization possible, allowing labor to shift seamlessly from high-cost to low-cost nations. Simultaneously, we shifted from an economy of ownership to one of access. DVDs gave way to Netflix; CDs yielded to Spotify. It is difficult to recall what the world felt like before the death of distance.

History offers other references. The Transcontinental Railroad cost $4 billion and 6 years. The Panama Canal cost $11 billion and 10 years. The Global Positioning System (GPS) - 22 years and $30 billion.

Only against this backdrop can the scale of the current AI data-center buildout come into focus. In 2026 alone, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are projected to spend over $600 billion on infrastructure. That is just… one year. By 2028, aggregate spending is expected to exceed $3 trillion. This is by far the largest capital expenditure project in human history. The scale of the bet is difficult to comprehend: we are building the equivalent of 100 GPS networks. 3 global fiber-optic systems. 5 Interstate Highway systems. 272 Panama Canals.

A terraforming of the cognitive landscape is here. Just as highways changed where we lived and fiber changed how we communicate, this infrastructure will change how we think. It's not clear how this $3 trillion bet will pay off. But, it's not a question of if these data-centers will change the world, but how. Personally, I don't expect them to end up as the world's most expensive ruins. Rather, when the dust settles, I expect the pre-AI world will feel as ancient as a map without roads.