In 2025, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta collectively spent US$380 billion on building artificial-intelligence tools. That number is expected to surge still higher this year, to $650 billion, to fund the building of physical infrastructure, such as data centers (see go.nature.com/3lzf79q). Moreover, these firms are spending lavishly on one particular segment: top technical talent. Meta reportedly offered a single AI researcher, who had cofounded a start-up firm focused on training AI agents to use computers, a compensation package of $250 million over four years (see ...