AI Spending to Hit $2.5 Trillion in 2026, Surpassing History’s Greatest Projects

When the Manhattan Project consumed $36 billion to build the atomic bomb, it was the most expensive scientific endeavor in human history. When the Apollo Program spent $250 billion to put a human on the moon, it defined an era. But this year, artificial intelligence will eclipse them all—combined.

“Spending on AI is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, dwarfing even the largest scientific and infrastructure projects in history.” — Gartner Research

The $2.5 Trillion Bet

According to Gartner, worldwide spending on AI will total $2.5 trillion this year—a staggering 44 percent increase over 2025. To understand the magnitude, consider this: if you spent $1 every second, it would take 31,000 years to spend $1 trillion. AI investment in 2026 alone will approach two and a half times that amount.

The comparison to history’s mega-projects is humbling. The Manhattan Project ($36 billion), the International Space Station ($150 billion), the Apollo Program ($250 billion), and the entire US Interstate Highway System ($620 billion) all pale in comparison to what the private sector will pour into AI this single year.

The infrastructure build-out accounts for the largest slice of this spending—$1.37 trillion dedicated to data centers, chips, and compute infrastructure. Tech giants are racing to secure NVIDIA GPUs, build massive server farms, and establish energy contracts to power the AI revolution.

AI services represent the second-largest category at $589 billion, as enterprises move from experimentation to production deployment. Companies are paying premium prices for AI-powered tools, consulting, and managed services.

Who’s Paying the Bill

The United States dominates AI investment, accounting for roughly 62 percent of total private funding since 2013. American companies have spent $471 billion on AI over the past decade, supporting nearly 7,000 newly funded AI startups.

China sits in second place with $119 billion in corporate AI investment, followed by the United Kingdom at $28 billion. Canada, Israel, Germany, India, France, South Korea, and Singapore round out the top ten, each investing between $7 billion and $15 billion.

“Unlike landmark projects of the past, AI funding has not been driven by a single government or wartime urgency. It has flowed through private markets, making it one of the largest privately financed technological waves in history.” — Stanford AI Index Report

The Debate Over Value

While the spending numbers soar, a parallel debate rages about whether AI is delivering commensurate value. A viral essay this week from investor Matt Shumer claimed AI can now build complete applications from natural language descriptions, writing “tens of thousands of lines of code” autonomously.

But skeptics point to research suggesting the reality is more nuanced. Studies from the Center for AI Safety and Scale AI found leading AI models produced flawed results on work assignments like data visualization and game development. Another study showed developers actually take 19 percent longer to complete code when using AI tools, though this research was based on early 2025 models.

The free versus paid divide explains part of the discrepancy. Menlo Ventures estimates only 3 percent of AI users are paid subscribers, meaning most people experience only a fraction of what modern AI can do. Advanced agents like Anthropic’s Claude Cowork and OpenAI’s Codex require paid plans starting at $20 per month.

What Comes Next

Gartner forecasts AI spending will surpass $3.3 trillion by 2027. The build-out shows no signs of slowing, with tech giants announcing new data center projects weekly and venture capital continuing to flow into AI startups at unprecedented rates.

World leaders and tech executives are currently convening in New Delhi for the India AI Impact Summit 2026, where the $2.5 trillion question hangs in the air: Will this investment transform human civilization the way the Apollo Program did, or will it join the ranks of overhyped technological bubbles?

For now, the money continues to flow. And history is watching.

This article was reported by the ArtificialDaily editorial team. For more information, visit Al Jazeera and Gartner Research.