Sometimes, it can seem like the AI industry is fighting to see who can spend the most money on data centers. Whoever builds the most data centers will have the most computing, and thus will be able to create the best AI products, which will guarantee victory in the years to come. There are limits to this way of thinking — traditionally, businesses ultimately succeed by doing more money and spending less — but it’s proven extremely persuasive for big tech companies.
If this is the game, Amazon seems to be winning.
the company announced in its earnings on Thursday that it predicts $200 billion in capital spending through 2026, on “artificial intelligence, chips, robotics and low-Earth orbit satellites.” That’s up from $131.8 billion in market capitalization in 2025. It’s tempting to attribute the entire capital budget to AI. However, unlike most of its competitors, Amazon has a significant physical factory, some of which is being converted for use by expensive robots, so non-AI costs are not so easy to brush off.
Google is far behind. In its earnings on Wednesdaythe company forecast capital spending of between $175 billion and $185 billion for 2026, up from $91.4 billion a year earlier. That’s significantly more than the company spent on fixed assets last year, and significantly more than most of its competitors.
Meta, which reported last week, forecast capital spending of $115 billion to $135 billion by 2026, while Oracle (once the poster child for AI infrastructure) plans 50 billion dollars. Microsoft does not yet have an official forecast for 2026, but the most recent quarterly figure was $37.5 billionwhich comes to about $150 billion, assuming it continues. It’s a remarkable increase, and one that has led to investor pressure on CEO Satya Nadella — but it still puts the company in third place.
From the tech world, the logic here is simple. The revolutionary potential of artificial intelligence is set to turn high-tech computing into the scarce resource of the future, and only companies that control their own supply will survive. But while Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle and others are frantically preparing for the computing desert of the future, their investors are unconvinced. Each company saw its share price plummet as investors pulled out of the hundreds of billions of dollars they had pledged, and higher-spending companies tended to fall the most.
Crucially, this isn’t just a problem for companies like Meta that haven’t figured out their AI product strategy yet. Everyone is — even companies like Microsoft and Amazon with a strong cloud business and a simple understanding of how to make money in the age of artificial intelligence. The numbers are simply too high for investors’ comfort.
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Investor sentiment isn’t everything – and in this case, it may not do much to change industry opinion. If you believe that AI is going to change everything (and the argument is pretty compelling at this point), you’d be foolish to change course just because Wall Street got upset. But going forward, Big Tech companies will be under a lot of pressure to downplay how expensive their AI ambitions really are.
