I saw the EXACT same thing with "big data" projects, many years ago. There were managers and devs aggressively pushing for this kind of project, so they could then put it on their Linked In.

And it worked! For them, anyway, but for the company it was a completely loss, in terms of the project - it never worked. Maybe was never completed, I don't remember.

I specifically heard people saying that once they put these types of projects on their resume, they would get daily contacts about jobs.