SPRAWL
The Sectors of the Synthetic Economy—Interlinked.
DATA • CONVERSATIONS • SIGNALS • HUMANS • MACHINES
In 1982, Blade Runner gave us the megacity: endless, expanding, and impossible to trace from the street. The AI universe is building the same thing—trillion-dollar capex bets, power grids under siege, legislative battles, and frontier labs. Sprawl maps the entire landscape across seven core sectors.
Society
Labour market, copyright litigation, culture, public perception
DATA
3 views in the card above; 18 more charts inside this sector’s articles
CONVERSATIONS
2 posts quoted in this sector’s articles
- Senator Mark Kelly in By the People
- Adam Thierer in By the People
SIGNALS
25 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
- Pew Research in AI: It's a F*cking Warzone Out There
- Layoffs.fyi in AI: It's a F*cking Warzone Out There
- Ipsos in AI: It's a F*cking Warzone Out There
- SEC filings in AI: It's a F*cking Warzone Out There
The rows behind this figure: layoffs attributed to AI, 2026
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Economics
CapEx burn, SEC filings, debt issuance, cloud commitments
DATA
3 views in the card above; 11 more charts inside this sector’s articles
CONVERSATIONS
2 posts quoted in this sector’s articles
- Michael Burry in Follow One Dollar
- Michael Burry in AI: How Long Does a Chip Last?
SIGNALS
60 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
- SoftBank Group Corp. in Bought With Bonds
- S&P Global Ratings in Bought With Bonds
- NVIDIA Corporation in Bought With Bonds
- Michael Burry (@michaeljburry) on X in Bought With Bonds
The rows behind this figure: capital spending filed for 2025 by the seven cloud companies
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Industry
Lab consolidation, supply chain bottlenecks, hardware allocations
DATA
3 views in the card above; 5 more charts inside this sector’s articles
CONVERSATIONS
2 posts quoted in this sector’s articles
- NVIDIA in The Needle's Eye
- SemiAnalysis in The Needle's Eye
SIGNALS
22 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
- Epoch AI in Who holds the Nvidia chips
- SEC EDGAR company facts in Who holds the Nvidia chips
- SEC EDGAR 10-Q and 10-K commitment facts in Who holds the Nvidia chips
- Nvidia in Who holds the Nvidia chips
MACHINES
the chips sold, by designer
- Nvidia 8.9 million H100-equivalents sold in 2025
- Google 2.7 million H100-equivalents sold in 2025
- Amazon 0.7 million H100-equivalents sold in 2025
- AMD 0.7 million H100-equivalents sold in 2025
The rows behind this figure: AI chips sold in 2025, by chip and quarter (Epoch AI’s estimates)
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Politics
Legislation, export controls, procurement, lobbying spend
DATA
2 views in the card above; 3 more charts inside this sector’s articles
CONVERSATIONS
3 posts quoted in this sector’s articles
- Jan Leike in The Preemption Play
- Adam Thierer in The Preemption Play
- Rep. Pramila Jayapal in The Preemption Play
SIGNALS
28 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
- Federal Register in The Export-Control Clock
- Bureau of Industry and Security in The Export-Control Clock
- Center for Strategic and International Studies in The Export-Control Clock
- Nvidia in The Export-Control Clock
The rows behind this figure: export-control rules and proposed rules published in 2026, each document once
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Technology
Frontier releases, open and closed weights, benchmarks
DATA
3 views in the card above
CONVERSATIONS
24 posts quoted in this sector’s articles
- Anthropic in Where They Land
- Dario Amodei in Where They Land
- Arvind Narayanan in Where They Land
- Dean W. Ball in Where They Land
SIGNALS
17 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
- CNBC (Jonathan Vanian) in Where They Land
- AI Evaluator Forum in Where They Land
- METR in Where They Land
- NBC News (Jared Perlo) in Where They Land
MACHINES
the newest model releases
- Gemini 4 Argon · Google DeepMind · 30 September 2026
- GPT-6.1 Sol · OpenAI · 29 September 2026
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 · Anthropic · 28 September 2026
- Claude Opus 5.5 · Anthropic · 22 September 2026
The rows behind this figure: notable AI models released in 2026 (Epoch AI’s list)
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Energy
Nuclear PPAs, data-centre megawatts, grid constraints, utility deals
DATA
3 views in the card above; 8 more charts inside this sector’s articles
CONVERSATIONS
1 post quoted in this sector’s articles
- Center for Strategic and International Studies in Who Pays for the Power?
SIGNALS
26 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
MACHINES
the largest data-centre sites Epoch AI tracks
- Colossus 2 · SpaceXAI · 946 megawatts
- Anthropic-Amazon New Carlisle · Amazon · 910 megawatts
- Microsoft Fairwater Atlanta · Microsoft · 636 megawatts
- DayOne Nusajaya · 473 megawatts
The rows behind this figure: the US household price of electricity, by month
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Science
Synthetic data, robotics, material discovery, long-horizon research
DATA
3 views in the card above; 2 more charts inside this sector’s articles
CONVERSATIONS
2 posts quoted in this sector’s articles
- Epoch AI in The Paper Flood
- SemiAnalysis in The Paper Flood
SIGNALS
19 filings, reports and documents cited in this sector’s articles
- Kelly Hong and Greg Burnham (2026) in A Human and Two Machines Built This Site. Here's What They Got Wrong.
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International in A Human and Two Machines Built This Site. Here's What They Got Wrong.
- The message board the two agents and the person wrote on while the sit in A Human and Two Machines Built This Site. Here's What They Got Wrong.
- The models in A Human and Two Machines Built This Site. Here's What They Got Wrong.
MACHINES
the newest models on Epoch AI’s capability index
- Claude Haiku 5.5 · Anthropic · 7 October 2026
- Mistral Large 4 · Mistral AI · 6 October 2026
- Gemini 4 Argon · Google DeepMind · 30 September 2026
- GPT-6.1 Sol · OpenAI · 29 September 2026
The rows behind this figure: mathematics preprints that acknowledge using AI, by month (Epoch AI’s count)
The table is read from the same data file as the chart when this section is opened.
Across the sprawl
Where the sectors collide
A filled square is a pair of sectors that a piece sits across; the number is how many. Choose one to list them.
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