By Futurist Thomas Frey
Something remarkable is happening to human ambition. For the first time in history, we’re approaching a moment where the limiting factor on what we can accomplish isn’t capability—it’s imagination.
Over the coming years, AI and robotics, along with other exponential technologies, will enable a single person to accomplish more during their lifetime than entire civilizations could achieve a century ago. And as individual capability explodes, our collective sights are shifting toward megaprojects—huge, massive, grandiose undertakings that would have seemed impossible just years ago.
The numbers tell the story. In my original analysis, I predicted megaprojects would reach 24% of global GDP within a decade. That was before generative AI, before humanoid robots reached commercial viability, before we fully understood how rapidly these technologies would compound. Now? That estimate looks conservative.
The Capability Revolution
Consider what’s changed. A civil engineer today can use AI to design structures that would have required teams of specialists for years. The AI doesn’t just assist—it explores millions of design variations, optimizes for materials, simulates stress tests, and identifies solutions humans would never conceive.
A project manager can coordinate thousands of autonomous construction robots working 24/7, never tired, never making mistakes from fatigue, continuously learning and improving their techniques. What took a decade now takes eighteen months.
A single visionary with the right tools can now conceptualize, design, fund, and execute projects that once required nation-states. The concentration of capability into smaller units—even individuals—is unprecedented in human history.
This isn’t incremental improvement. This is a phase change in what’s possible.
Why Megaprojects Are Inevitable
When I first wrote about the megaproject explosion, I identified several drivers: urbanization, infrastructure decay, climate adaptation, and economic competition. All of those remain true. But I missed the most important factor: exponential capability creating exponential ambition.
Humans don’t think small when given big tools. Give someone the ability to build something ten times larger than before, and they immediately start planning something a hundred times larger. It’s not rational—it’s human nature.
We’re seeing it already. Elon Musk isn’t planning a Mars base—he’s planning a Mars civilization. Saudi Arabia isn’t building a city—they’re building NEOM, a $500 billion linear city 170 kilometers long. China isn’t constructing bridges—they’re creating the largest infrastructure network in human history.
These aren’t outliers. They’re the beginning of a trend that will define the next three decades.
The Categories of Coming Megaprojects
Infrastructure Reimagined: We’re not just repairing roads and bridges. We’re building hyperloop networks, autonomous vehicle corridors spanning continents, and energy grids that make current systems look like prototypes. India’s plan to build 100 smart cities was ambitious in 2015. By 2030, building 100 smart cities will be considered modest.
Vertical Agriculture Systems: As population pressure intensifies and arable land becomes scarce, we’ll see megaproject-scale vertical farms that dwarf current attempts. We’re talking about agricultural towers kilometers high, feeding entire cities from structures that occupy a fraction of the land traditional farming requires. AI-optimized growing conditions, robotic harvesting, and closed-loop water systems will make these facilities more productive per square meter than anything in agricultural history. The first city-feeding vertical farm megaproject breaks ground by 2031.
Space Industrialization: The next megaproject frontier isn’t on Earth. Mining asteroids, building orbital manufacturing facilities, constructing lunar bases, establishing Mars colonies—these shift from speculation to planning to execution within twenty years. The first trillion-dollar space megaproject launches by 2035.
Underwater Cities: I originally dismissed this as too speculative. I was wrong. With AI-designed structures, robotic construction, and necessity driven by rising sea levels and land scarcity, we’ll see the first serious underwater habitat megaprojects by 2032. Not research stations—actual cities.
Fusion Power Networks: Once fusion reaches commercial viability (likely between 2030-2035), we’ll see a global race to build fusion power plants. These aren’t incremental additions to existing grids. These are complete energy infrastructure replacements, funded at nation-state levels, executed in years rather than decades.
The Economic Transformation
When megaprojects reach 24% of global GDP—and they will, probably by 2033—the economic implications are staggering.
Traditional construction, engineering, and project management industries will be completely transformed. The companies that dominate 2035 don’t exist yet. They’re being founded right now by people who understand that AI and robotics don’t just make existing processes faster—they make entirely new approaches possible.
Employment shifts dramatically. Millions of traditional construction jobs disappear, replaced by hundreds of thousands of high-skilled roles managing AI systems and robot fleets. The transition will be brutal for unprepared workers and transformative for those who adapt.
Capital flows differently. Megaprojects require funding mechanisms that don’t exist yet. We’ll see new financial instruments, new public-private partnerships, and new international cooperation frameworks. The World Bank and IMF will either radically transform or become irrelevant.
The Acceleration Pattern
Here’s what I got right in my original analysis: megaprojects create capabilities that enable bigger megaprojects. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle.
Build a hyperloop network, and you’ve demonstrated construction techniques that make the next network cheaper and faster. Establish a Mars base, and you’ve proven systems that make Mars cities feasible. Each megaproject doesn’t just accomplish its goal—it builds the capability foundation for the next generation of even more ambitious projects.
What I underestimated was the speed of acceleration. Technologies don’t just improve linearly—they compound. AI improves robotics. Robotics improves construction. Better construction enables more ambitious designs. More ambitious designs drive AI development. The feedback loops are getting shorter and more intense.
The Human Element
The most profound shift isn’t technological—it’s psychological. For most of human history, we’ve been constrained by what’s possible. Now we’re only constrained by what we can imagine.
A generation growing up with AI assistants, robotic labor, and exponential capabilities won’t think like we do. They won’t ask “Can we build a floating city?” They’ll ask “Which ocean should we build it in?”
Their ambition won’t be tempered by historical limitations. They’ll propose projects that sound insane to us but are merely ambitious to them.
Final Thoughts
The megaproject explosion isn’t just about big construction projects. It’s about humanity’s relationship with ambition, capability, and the future.
For the first time, we have tools that match our imagination. We can actually build the things we’ve dreamed about. Cities in the desert. Colonies on Mars. Infrastructure that reshapes continents. Projects so grand they seem impossible—until AI and robotics make them inevitable.
The next two decades won’t just feature megaprojects. They’ll be defined by them. The only question is whether our ambition and wisdom can keep pace with our capabilities.
Based on history, I’d bet on ambition. Whether wisdom follows remains our greatest uncertainty.
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