Where safety money goes
Rough split: technical research largest; evaluations next; governance and policy smaller; field-building and advocacy smallest. The work that produces treaties is underfunded relative to the stakes.
Data Card · 2026
The Safety Funding Gap
Money is a map of priorities. Capabilities get the capital. Safety gets the remainder.
Capabilities
$250B+
Global yearly investment in making AI more powerful (industry scale, mid-2020s estimates)
vs
Safety field
~$190M
Yearly flow into technical safety, evaluations, policy, and advocacy combined
More than 1,000×
Less than one-tenth of one percent of the money building this technology goes toward making sure it does not end us. Inside the safety pot, advocacy that produces political will is a thin slice.
What to fund instead of theater
Independent evaluations outside lab walls. Treaty design and diplomatic capacity. Public advocacy that creates permission for hard law. Compute-governance tooling. Lab-internal teams alone cannot write international rules.
Rounded midpoints compiled from public sources (AI safety funding overviews, 80,000 Hours, Open Philanthropy grant analyses, Inside Philanthropy). Published totals vary with definitions. Working: nakadafoundation.org/blog/why-is-there-so-little-ai-safety-funding/
Close the gap where it moves policy.
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