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2026 Capital Expenditure Forecast
Comparison of new capex forecasts vs previous estimations for major tech companies.
Primary Sources
Why Big Tech's $700 billion AI splurge is misleading
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC 2026-05-01T15:47:31.735Z Rising component prices are driving Big Tech's AI spending surge. Microsoft and Meta's capital expenditure hikes largely result from higher component prices. That suggests Big Tech companies haven't massively expanded their buildout plans lately. Big Tech's AI spending is surging, though not necessarily because companies are building significantly more capacity. This week, industry executives pointed to the same underlying issue: sharply rising component costs, especially for memory chips, are inflating capital expenditures spent on data centers and other equipment."We are increasing our infrastructure capex forecast for this year. Most of that is due to higher component costs, particularly memory pricing," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on Wednesday.Microsoft echoed that trend, with CFO Amy Hood saying that roughly $25 billion of its projected $190 billion in 2026 capex is tied to higher component prices.Amazon didn't raise its capex forecast at all this week. Even then, CEO Andy Jassy said memory costs have "skyrocketed," and the company is trying to keep these costs under control. Memory prices are soaring as AI demand strains supply. Research firm TrendForce expects DRAM prices to jump as much as 63% in the second quarter of 2026, while NAND flash prices could surge 75%. NAND and DRAM are different semiconductor technologies used to hold data.That's reshaping how investors should interpret Big Tech's spending boom. Take a theoretical example: If you buy 100 AI components for $1,000 each, that's $100,000 in capex. If the cost of each component goes up 25%, they now cost $1,250 each. Your capex is now $125,000, even though you're adding zero extra capacity.When stripping out this pricing impact, Big Tech companies may not have boosted their AI buildout plans much at all this week.Take a look at this table from BNP Paribas. Microsoft's capex plans exceeded Wall Street estimates by $32 billion. That seems big, until you consider $25 billion of that increase comes from higher prices, not a more ambitious buildout. Meta upped its capex forecast by $10 billion. Higher memory prices could account for most, or all, of that increase.CompanyNew GuideStreet ConsensusSurprise (%)Old GuideMicrosoft$190B$158B+20%-Amazon$200B$197B+1%$200BGoogle$185B$181B+2%$180BMeta$135B$123B+10%$125BTOTAL CAPEX$710B$659B+8%-RBC Capital analysts spotted this phenomenon in early February. Back then...
Big Tech's AI Spending to Reach $725 Billion in 2026 - Statista
AI Boom When Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon announced their earnings for the first three months of 2026 this week, the most pressing question on many investors’ minds wasn’t about actual business performance. Instead, people were looking for reassurance that the AI hype lives on, focusing on one number that has become a popular gauge for AI appetite: planned capital expenditure. If that number continued to rise as it did for the past few years, bubble fears could be put aside for a couple of weeks. If it didn’t, markets would likely have a mid-sized meltdown, as AI optimism has single-handedly kept markets afloat in the face of the Iran war, surging oil prices and growing stagflation fears.Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, as the four hyperscalers signaled that they’ll continue spending unprecedented amounts of money on the AI capabilities of their data centers. Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta once again raised their spending forecast for 2026, while Amazon stuck with its February projection of $200 billion. The four companies are now expecting to invest up to $725 billion this year, most of it on AI infrastructure, i.e. data centers, chips and networking equipment. While some investors are spooked by the scale of spending, which compresses margins in the short term, the leaders of the companies involved are adamant that it’s the right way to go. “AI is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where the current growth is unprecedented and the future growth even bigger,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently wrote in his annual letter to shareholders. “We’re not going to be conservative in how we play this – we’re investing to be the meaningful leader, and our future business, operating income, and FCF (free cash flow) will be much larger because of it.”While the spending side looks bullish, there were also encouraging signs on the revenue side, signaling that all that spending will eventually translate to future growth. Microsoft reported that its AI business is on an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion, representing 123-percent year-over-year growth. Amazon saw the strongest AWS growth since 2022, when its cloud business was roughly half the current size, and finally, Alphabet saw its cloud revenue surge more than 60 percent, with its backlog nearly doubling from last quarter to $460 billion, indicating a lot more growth to come. Description This chart shows the annual capital expenditure of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft. Report Download Chart URL to ...
US Big Tech AI Spending and Capex Forecasts Surge in Q1 2026
The company predicts its 2026 capital expenditure will reach $190 billion, a massive 61% increase compared to 2025, with rising component prices expected to contribute $25 billion. Amazon\'s cloud division, AWS, saw its fastest growth in 15 quarters, with Q1 revenue increasing 28% to $37.6 billion.
AI Spending Hits $725B as Big Tech Raises Capex - theoutpost.ai
Big Tech plans $725 billion in AI spending this year, with Meta raising capital expenditure to $145B. Google leads with 63% cloud growth amid rising costs.
