Fresh from counting all the AI data centre “bragawatts”, Barclays’ research analysts have totted up the latest capital expenditure numbers that the hyperscalers unveiled in their latest round of earnings. It’s?.?.?. a lot.
For example, Amazon — soon after announcing that it was sacking 14,000 people — increased its capex guidance for 2025 from an already humongous $120bn to $125bn, and indicated that it was going to spend even more next year. As Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts:
We are expanding our data centre footprint, largely to accommodate Gen AI?.?.?.?We’ll continue to make significant investments, especially in AI, as we believe it to be a massive opportunity with the potential for strong returns on invested capital over the long term.
All told, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle now indicate that they will invest about $390bn this year, and that this will grow to $540bn in 2026 and $615bn in 2027. Here’s what that ramp-up looks like compared to the pre-AI frenzy (zoomable version).