I’m wondering how sustainable this is.

Tech firms are throwing billions at this at the moment, and will continue to do so for a long time. As soon as faster tech emerges, they’ll upgrade - they don’t need to justify it to the public, and justification to shareholders is pretty easy. “We’re trying to secure our position at the forefront of a competitive market”.

Would a publicly funded project be able to keep up with that? Or would there be a big upfront cost, only to find that their technology is in the Stone Age five years from now?

With CERN it makes a lot of sense. There isn’t a vast market out there for it to compete with - just a few organisations that they collaborate and “compete” with. But trying to join the big spenders seems risky.

What am I missing?