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 ...

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Big tech firms spent $380 billion on AI in 2025, with individual researchers receiving compensation packages as high as $250 million. This spending is accelerating an 'AI brain drain' from academia, with young, highly-cited ML researchers 100x more likely to leave for industry. The piece argues that the lone-genius hiring strategy is misguided—science is a team sport, and institutions consistently outperform individuals. Three alternatives are proposed: universities should commit to public-interest AI (citing Switzerland's open Apertus LLM), distribute salaries more equitably rather than competing on pay, and offer distinctive intellectual and civic rewards including tenure credit for open-source contributions and public engagement.

Academia and the “AI Brain Drain”