It's literally a building, nothing justifies that cost... where are the death ray lasers? Where is the re-atomizer? Makes no sense, the figure must be wrong
170+ million for a BUILDING?! That doesn't make sense to me at all - as someone who spends his waking hours in research laboratories in a newish building of comparable size to the Chen building, I can't see where the money would go.
Well, they fixed the math but now unfortunately the sentence is now ridiculous:
> if my math is correct, means building the damn thing is costing Tesla $55.6 per square foot. And that’s just the estimated cost of the contracts so far.
Based on a quick look[1] that's a totally average price per square foot for an industrial building. AMAZING.
They spent $42.5mm on the station. Other comparable stations in the region cost ~$500k. The title is a little misleading. The Pentagon asserts they cannot provide information on the gas station project because it was part of a discontinued program with a total budget of $800mm. Thus, the extrapolation that they have no idea where any of the total budget went.
And how much to build it to mil. spec? Probably x10 that number at a minimum. Sure, it's not a military establishment, but I am sure their security and 50 year event survivability is higher than any commercial DC facility.
Add to that the fact that utilization in most DCs is terrible. A super computer will throw out significantly more heat than your "traditional" DC.
Let's not even consider the op. ex. of moving the staff working who would work on the new facilities.
Edit: And LOL at those figures being accurate. That's just the building. What about the costs for the fibre, all that copper, power infrastructure, cooling, false floors, air filtering, special construction needs such as sunken well floors (to contain any leaks from the cooling systems, for example).
Because the cost is not just technological. There's also major land use issues, which get expensive in CA. His idea that putting it along the middle of the freeway will obviate these is not credible. I estimate $20bn to build it, minimum. Rocketry is simple by comparison.
you're right. Inflation though :) Looking at the history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M982_Excalibur#History - it was well under under $100K in the first years. In that 2015 order of 7.5K units the program cost is $2B with the procurement cost is $790K - looks strange with that $1B+ tucked on that late.
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