마이크로소프트, 메타, 구글이 최근 실적 발표에서 자본 지출을 합산해 7250억 달러로 대폭 확대했다고 보고하며 AI 투자에 대한 비판론을 효과적으로 잠재웠다.
Higher component costs, including memory chips, alongside plans to build more data centers than previously anticipated, drove upward revisions in capital expenditure forecasts across the tech sector. On Wednesday, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Microsoft collectively raised their 2026 capital spending outlooks, bringing the four largest technology companies’ combined projected spending to up to $725 billion—surpassing the GDP of nations like Switzerland or Turkey.
The revised projections reflect significant shifts across the industry. Amazon’s forecast remains unchanged at $200 billion. Meta’s range moved from $115 billion to $135 billion to $125 billion to $145 billion. Alphabet adjusted from $175 billion to $185 billion to $180 billion to $190 billion. Microsoft’s forecast jumped to $190 billion for calendar year 2026, following last year’s indication that fiscal year 2026 spending—which ends in June—would exceed the $88.2 billion recorded in fiscal year 2025.
The companies are racing to expand new data centers to meet surging demand for AI compute, framing the technology as a once-in-a-generation opportunity and asserting that the unprecedented investment is both justified and poised to yield returns. For now, robust cloud performance has alleviated market concerns regarding potential overspending. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud all reported higher sequential growth rates, with Google Cloud revenue surging 63.4% year over year—a record pace.
“We are seeing unprecedented internal and external demand for AI compute resources,” Alphabet CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on the company’s analyst call. “The investments we are making in AI is delivering strong growth as evidenced by the record revenue and backlog growth in Google Cloud and strong performance in Google Services. Looking ahead, these strong results reinforce our conviction to invest the capital required to continue to capture the AI opportunity.” She added that the company’s capex next year will “significantly increase compared to 2026.”
Meta and Microsoft attributed part of their increased spending to surging component prices, particularly for memory chips. “For calendar year 2026, we expect to invest roughly $190 billion in capital expenditures, which includes approximately $25 billion from the impact of higher component pricing,” Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said during the earnings call. Meta CFO Susan Li noted that the capex increase “reflects our expectations for higher component pricing this year and to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future year capacity.”
Market reaction was swift. Alphabet’s results were comparatively strong, sending its shares up 6.4% in overnight trading. Pivotal Research raised its price target on GOOGL to $470 from $420, representing a 34% upside from the stock’s last close, while maintaining a ‘Buy’ rating. In an investor note, the research firm highlighted that Alphabet reported a “much stronger-than-expected” first quarter, including a fifth consecutive quarter of accelerating search revenue growth at 19%, effectively offsetting investor concerns surrounding the higher capital expenditures.
Commenting on the broader industry shift, The Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman stated on X: “The ‘AI capex is speculative’ narrative is dead. The companies investing in AI infrastructure today are buying the most valuable real estate of the next decade and tonight they showed exactly why.”