Visualizing the AI investment wave

AI investment may be the next major economic bubble

A video examines the massive surge in AI spending—forecast to hit $500B by 2026—and how this may be propping up a fragile US economy. Experts warn that if AI investment slows or under-delivers, the consequences could be felt in markets, jobs and growth.

The major AI industry players are creating a web of circular investments

Bloomberg created a network diagram that shows how companies like Nvidia and OpenAI are fueling the AI money machine. The chart shows that many top AI companies provide significant investments to one another.

In 2025, American tech companies will spend $300B to $400B on AI

That is, in nominal dollars, more than any group of companies has ever spent to do anything. Notably, these companies are not remotely close to earning $400B on artificial intelligence.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called OpenAI 'the most capital-intensive startup in history'

As of 2024, Silicon Valley was set to spend $1T in the coming years building AI. As companies, including Google and Microsoft, fling billions at AI dreams, concerns are rising about whether that money will ever be recouped. To learn about the argument that there is an AI bubble—and that it could soon burst if AI doesn't prove its worth—read this article.

71% of equity investments in Q1 2025 went to AI companies

That's up from just 14% in 2020, according to JPMorgan, which recently conducted an analysis of venture capital investment trends in the US.

In 2025, sovereign wealth funds invested more than $66B into artificial intelligence

Developing artificial intelligence, both from a hardware and software perspective, is time and resource-intensive. Sovereign wealth funds, particularly those in the Middle East, have heavily invested in critical AI infrastructure, like data centers.

View a timeline of AI deployments from 2017 to 2025

The development of transformer architecture and the release of GPTs across AI labs led to rapid changes in LLM scale and power. Companies like OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Anthropic have invested billions of dollars to develop reliable, versatile models.

The Anthropic Economic Index shows AI adoption is highest in computer science roles

The analysis of millions of anonymized conversations on Claude aims to reveal how AI is being integrated into real-world tasks across the labor market. As of November 2025, 52% of conversations were classified as involving enhancing existing work products, while 45% involved using Claude for automation.

See the news with AI-generated data visualizations

Realtime uses generative AI to create immediate data visualizations of news items on its regularly-updated feed, pulling from public data feeds. Peruse stories around sports, economics, politics, and more with the helpful aid of charts and graphs. See the shape of the news with this clever AI tool here.

AI is estimated to drive most data center power demand growth through 2030

According to a report from the International Energy Agency, a typical AI data center in 2025 consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, but the largest under construction are expected to consume 20 times as much. Global data center electricity consumption is expected to surpass Japan's total consumption by 2030.

AI expert shows the cyclical nature of AI hype—in 1988

Rodney Brooks wrote several decades ago about the boom and bust cycles of artificial intelligence. Starting from the 1950s excitement over ENIAC's multiplication through the second launch of then-novel neural networks, Brooks suggests AI progresses incrementally despite the hype.

Stephen Wolfram on AI's rapid progress & the "Post-Knowledge Work" era

AI, as a concept, has been around since at least the 1950s, but it's only in the last year or so that the technology has been able to equal humans at many tasks -- and in many cases surpass humans. In this podcast, mathematician and computer scientist Stephen Wolfram provides an AI 101, explaining how we got here, how highly advanced chatbots like ChatGPT work, and what our world is in store for next.

How to visualize the enormous wealth of Elon Musk

The disruptive innovator and founder of SpaceX and Tesla is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, an unimaginable sum. This simple interactive visual uses pixels (representing $1K each) on a scrolling screen to demonstrate the billionaire's wealth compared to other known financial values, like the cost of building a Boeing 777 or the net worth of Tiger Woods.

Meet the investor running his life with AI

Daniel Ha is a venture capitalist who built a suite of AI agents to boost his productivity, both professionally and personally. At his VC firm, a troupe of agents gathers data on startups and analyzes it from competing perspectives to produce a confidence score. When his dad was diagnosed with cancer, Ha used an oncology-trained AI to help him understand the condition.

Visualizing the world's $261T in investable assets

Nearly half of the world's portfolio of stocks and bonds originate in the US. Roughly 1% of all investable assets are in the form of cryptocurrency.

NASA economic impact (and budget history)

It's estimated that for every dollar NASA spends on its programs, $8 is produced in US economic growth. With a 2023 budget of roughly $25 billion, that means NASA helped create $200 billion in economic value. The administration's investments pay off so massively due to the technologies it develops, many of which become commercially appealing. Dive into the economic impact of NASA's development here.

Using deep learning to analyze tumors

The explosive growth of life sciences data is driving artificial intelligence methods to gain traction in biology and medicine — including cancer research.

Palantir's technology is part of a larger shift in modern warfare

As warfare becomes increasingly technical, Palantir executives say artificial intelligence is going to revolutionize how military leaders in war zones make decisions. They argue that this shift towards "algorithmic warfare," or the integration of large technological enhancements like AI, will enable militaries to be more powerful and make fewer mistakes.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

From 2014-25, US private sector data center investments have increased more than 25-fold

The annualized rate of US data center construction has ballooned from $1.6B to $41.1B, creating a market for data centers whose infrastructure costs and land, power, and transmission capacity demands rival those of offices and industrial facilities.

Visualizing cyberattacks by country

Cyber crime is expected to cost the global economy trillions per year by 2025. This data illustration showcases the countries with the most severe cyber attacks from 2006-2020.

Ranking valuations of NBA teams

NBA teams were worth a total of $138B in 2024, with the Golden State Warriors the highest-valued at over $9B, according to research and analysis conducted by sports business outlet Sportico. Dive into the data with this write-up and visualization.

One $100 investment in the Medallion Fund skyrockets over time

The Medallion Fund, the famously secretive quant fund that invests billions of dollars for the partners and employees of a single firm with a legendary track record, has trounced the market for more than three decades. While its results are an extreme outlier, this visualization showcases the power of compound interest.

Visualizing the enormity of plastic waste compared to global landmarks

The team at Reuters Graphics visualizes the world’s addiction to plastic bottles. Around the world, almost 1 million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. The illustrations included in this visual explainer show what that pile of plastic would look like if it was collected over longer periods of time and how large the piles would be compared to famous landmarks.

2025 venture capital funding by destination, visualized

This chart's source, Dealroom, uses "breakout capital" to refer to funding rounds or companies in the $15M to $100M total funding range. It labels the startup stage as under $15M, and the scaleup stage as $100M+.

Visualize government spending with USAFacts

This resource turns complex federal budget data into clear charts and summaries, letting users explore how much the government spends; where the money goes; and how revenue, deficits, and debt change over time.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Calculate how much of your tax dollars go to each federal program based on your income, filing status, and number of children

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.