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Comment by no_wizard | Hacker News Reader

Much like when the administration announced an investment of 500 Billion USD in AI some months back, not a peep since. Actually shocked nobody here has even referenced that in relation to this, at least at the time of this writing

Much like that “initiative”, I imagine this won’t materialize either, they’re largely hoping government funds get steered toward them and by which point they’ll pocket everything they can while delivering a minimum of what was promised, if anything at all, and they won’t be properly held accountable for it.

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Are you referring to the Stargate Project? I guess so, since there weren't any other 500 billion USD AI projects announced recently in the USA.

Construction of the first data center Abilene, Texas site is ongoing. Emily Chang visited the site over a month ago and got video footage [1]. So it's not nothing. Will they actually invest 500 billion in the end? I dunno; I guess we'll see. The main challenges seem to be the availability of electrical power and skilled workers, not demand, investment or ambition.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhIJs4zbH0o

The overall impression I get of such projects is that politicians celebrate the funding victory, and then forget about it. Then the project's funds get eaten up by administrative costs over time. Ezra Klien [1] recently highlighted two such examples: high speed rail in CA, and rural broadband subsidies. Personally, I haven't seen much, if anything, actually spent out of Biden's infrastructure bill. The money from these programs just seems to...vanish. Allowing this to happen undermines the idea that the USG is a trustworthy spender of our money. I would personally prefer it if political success wasn't just grabbing more budget, but actually overseeing successful execution of public projects.

1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcZxaFfxloo

I've seen a lot of transportation infrastructure projects at least partially funded from the bill around me. I've charged at EV charging locations funded by NEVI, and I've charged at some stations built expecting NEVI funding that is now on hold. I've ridden on busses purchased by grants issued through the IIJA. I've seen the ground broken for building new bike trails around me based on grants from the IIJA, and they're getting close to done. The highways around me have current construction projects underway which were funded through the IIJA.

I see some of the things funded by the IIJA every day of my life.

And that's not including the projects which are still being worked on getting approved including projects to replace sewage lines in my area, reworking stormwater drainage systems, and additional flood control projects, all of which are planned to be funded through the IIJA and all of which I think my city could really use. 60% of the IIJA funding hasn't been spent yet.

I have fiber, as do the 9 counties around mine because of rural broadband investment. My sister moved to downstate Illinois, and most rural counties offer high speed Internet if not straight up fiber now.

Go to flyover States to see the impact of that money.

Are these instances actually funded by 2021 IIJA BEAD program?

I don’t think Illinois has actually awarded any of that funding to providers to build anything yet. It looks like the original schedule was to start awarding grants this summer after planning process from 2021-2025.

https://dceo.illinois.gov/broadband/bead.html

That's round 4.

If your run was government funded, it was under RDOF

> Personally, I haven't seen much, if anything, actually spent out of Biden's infrastructure bill.

Then you are part of the problem, pull your fingers out of your ears.

So if we build one data center a year, how long will it take to invest 500B? Will Trump still be president for that parade?

Nvidia's data center revenue was $39B last quarter. Between chips and electric/cooling infrastructure, a billion dollars doesn't get you far.

Obviously $500B is a lot of money, but it's not actually an unbelievable amount of money.

The one location will probably be several billion dollars. The $500B initiative is supposed to be spread across 20 or so locations.

It doesn't matter how many locations they spread it over, they aren't spending that much money in under 20 years on chatbots and buggy code writers. Maybe if a massive unforeseen breakthrough comes and breaks us past the wall of diminishing returns we've hit.

>Much like when the administration announced an investment of 500 Billion USD in AI some months back

That was a project by Oracle to build some data centres, many of which had already broke ground and were under construction, and they pulled OpenAI and Softbank in to give it that AI veneer.

So it's stuff that is really happening, and was already happening. Similarly this TI plant was announced under the prior administration as a win of the chips act, and again it's being recycled to current.

This sort of shell game works for a while, but a couple of years the bill comes due.

I have no desire to defend the admin, but that was not what was announced at all. It was announced that OpenAI/Oracle/Softbank were investing $500B, which they are. It had nothing to do with government spending.

Trump announced it at the White House.

He wants credit for everything while doing nothing.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/t...

What's your point? The question was about gov spending, not political antics.

The $500B was their own money, not gov money...what do you think they're going to pocket?

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