Data Driven Articles, built from public data and official sources.

How fast has the computing behind AI grown? Training compute since 2010

Scatter plot on a log scale of the training compute of 457 notable AI models from 2010 to 2025. A dashed trend line rises steeply, doubling every 5.7 months, far steeper than a dotted line for the pre-2010 pace of a doubling every 20 months. A solid line traces the record-holding models.

The compute used to train notable AI models has doubled about every 5.7 months since 2010, against roughly every 20 months in the decades before. Researchers count that compute in FLOP (floating point operations), the total number of arithmetic operations performed during training. This article uses an open dataset of 457 notable models published from 2010 to 2025 to show how fast it has grown.

Large numbers are hard to feel, so here is one way to scale them. If all 8 billion people on Earth each carried out one calculation per second, without stopping, they would manage about 2.5...

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Europe's shrinking workforce: what the UN projects for 2025 to 2050

Bar chart of the projected change in the population aged 20 to 64 between 2025 and 2050 for 36 European countries. 33 decline, from Bosnia and Herzegovina at minus 34 percent to Norway at minus 3 percent. Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom grow.

Europe is growing older, and the number of people of working age is about to fall faster than it has in decades. Using the United Nations' latest population projections for 36 European countries, we looked at how many people will be aged 20 to 64 in 2050 compared with today, and how much migration changes the picture.

Fertility is the main driver. The median fertility rate across these countries in 2025 is 1.46 children per woman, and 24 of the 36 are below 1.5. The highest is 1.74.

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Whose money lost the most value? Prices since 2000 in 158 economies

Bar chart on a log scale of how much consumer prices rose between 2000 and 2024 for five economies with the biggest rises and ten of the largest economies, from Angola at 355 times to Japan at 1.11 times.

Prices rise almost everywhere, but the speed varies enormously. Using the World Bank's consumer price index, we compared what a basket of goods cost in 2000 with what it cost in 2024 across 158 economies. In Japan it cost 11% more. In Angola it cost 355 times as much.

A saver in Sub-Saharan Africa faced about one and a half times the yearly erosion of one in Europe and Central Asia. Holding cash for two decades was a steady drag in Germany and close to a wipe-out in Angola or Iran.

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