Immense amounts of money is grifted, sure, but it is indeed applied when the U.S does need it in computing centers, the military-industrial, etc. I’d imagine most of that is military and the military has a civil workforce and contractors for as much as we lambast them they do pretty much lower the costs immensely on projects like that.

U.S has also has control over most of the major computing corporations in the world. While manufacturing may be based elsewhere the consumer market for computers here is immense.