Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are set to keep sharply increasing their AI-related capital expenditures in 2026, meaning the spending pullback some investors hope for is unlikely for now.
June Quarter · Big Tech AI Buildout
No One Blinks: $168B in a Single Quarter on AI
Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are set to report roughly $168 billion in combined capital expenditure for the June quarter — a 74% jump from a year earlier — with little sign the AI spending race is slowing down.
~$168B
Combined capex, Q2 estimate +74% YoY
~$725B
Combined capex, FY2026 estimate +77% YoY
~$5.3T
Cumulative four-firm capex, 2025–2030 estimate
Annual capex is nearly doubling
Combined four-company capital expenditure, prior year vs. FY2026 estimate
Who spends what — FY2026 estimate
Projected full-year capital expenditure per company
Why it keeps growing
Cloud units AWS and Azure seen resilient on AI-driven demand
Guidance points to continued, not curtailed, investment
Where the risk lies
Revenue has not caught up with heavy GPU spending
Rising costs push some firms to ration AI use
The long horizon
On a 2026–2031 baseline including data centers and power, cumulative capex could reach about $7.6 trillion — a pace some observers say outstrips the late-1990s telecom boom.
The open question: whether demand and monetization can catch up before the buildout outruns it.
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