We don't have hypotheses, experiments, and results published, of what a given computing system X, made up of Y, does or doesn't achieve. There are certainly research papers, algorithms and proof-of-concepts, but (afaict) no scientific evidence for most of the practices we follow and results we get.
We don't have engineering specifications or tolerances for what a given thing can do. We don't have calculations for how to estimate, given X computing power, and Y system or algorithm, how much Z work it can do. We don't even have institutional knowledge of all the problems a given engineering effort faces, and how to avoid those problems. When we do have institutional knowledge, it's in books from 4 decades ago, that nobody reads, and everyone makes the same mistakes again and again, because there is no institutional way to hold people to account to avoid these problems.
What we do have, is some tool someone made, that then millions of dollars is poured into using, without any realistic idea whatsoever what the result is going to be. We hope that we get what we want out of it once we're done building something with it. Like building a bridge over a river and hoping it can handle the traffic.