The real purpose of projects like this is to funnel large amounts of government taxpayer money to the right people.
Actually building these white elephants with a part of the money is just a necessary part of the deal.
After all - they have something to show to the people to keep them from wondering what happened to the bulk of the money.
Exactly. In almost every one of these projects, there is a crony who has inserted him/herself in front of a technology company in order to skim a windfall and get a payback.