Big Tech’s $630 billion AI spree now rivals Sweden’s economy, unsettling investors: ‘We’ve never invested this much on anything before’

Big Tech AI spending has reached new heights.

During earnings calls this week, tech firms raised their capital expenditure, or capex, projections. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said on Wednesday it plans to double capex in 2026 to nearly $185 billion. Amazon said Thursday it plans to devote a towering $200 billion to capex, well ahead of Wall Street estimates. Last week, Meta said full-year capex will rise to as much as $135 billion. Those firms’ spending, along with Microsoft’s growing projections, totals more than a staggering $630 billion.

And Big Tech is putting all of its eggs in one basket: Not only are the dollars dramatically higher, but the spend is more concentrated in a single purpose—scaling AI compute—rather than in a mix of strategic bets. 

The amount companies are spending on AI infrastructure now rivals that of some of the largest economies in the world and is comparable to the annual GDP of countries like Sweden and Israel. Capital expenditures fund such big-ticket infrastructure items as data centers, servers, ...