Big Tech’s combined 2026 AI capital expenditure has been raised to a record $725 billion — almost 75% more than the $381 billion spent in 2025. Microsoft (~$190B), Alphabet ($180–190B), Meta ($125–145B), and Amazon (~$200B) all confirmed unprecedented infrastructure spending in their late-April / early-May earnings.
The Capex Stack
- Microsoft: ~$190B 2026 capex
- Alphabet: $180–190B (raised from $175–185B)
- Meta: $125–145B (raised from $115–135B)
- Amazon: ~$200B (held from February)
- Combined: up to $725B across the four hyperscalers
The 2025 → 2026 Step
- 2025 actual: ~$381B combined
- 2026 plan: ~$725B combined
- YoY increase: ~+90%
- One of the largest single-year capex jumps in corporate history
Where The Money Goes
- AI training + inference compute — chips, racks, GPUs/TPUs
- Data-centre construction — land, shells, power, cooling
- Networking + storage — connectivity inside and across regions
- Power infrastructure — direct utility deals + on-site generation
What The Anthropic-Google Deal Confirms
- Anthropic just committed $200B over 5 years to Google Cloud + chips (per The Information)
- OpenAI compute spend: $50B in 2026 (Brockman testimony)
- Hyperscaler capex backed by hard customer commitments — not speculative
- Frontier labs are locking in capacity years ahead — supply constraint is real
The Market Discriminator
- Q1 2026 results showed: Alphabet +34% in April (cloud + ad + Waymo beat)
- Meta -9% after lifting capex guidance
- Capex-vs-monetisation tension is the new market discriminator
- Investors reward those who can show AI capex translating to revenue + margin
The Constraints
- Power — gigawatt-scale data centres need utility-scale generation
- Land — siting in proximity to power becomes the new real-estate frontier
- Chips — NVIDIA, Google TPU, AMD MI all sold out for the foreseeable future
- People — operational + research talent at the frontier remains scarce
What Comes Next
- Q2 2026 earnings updates on capex trajectory
- Power-deal disclosures (utility partnerships, on-site generation)
- Watch for revisions higher again as compute demand outpaces guidance
- Apple’s posture — accelerating growth without joining the capex arms race
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