Technology · Issue 02
Three companies, 63 percent of the cloud
Synergy Research, Q2 2026: Amazon Web Services 28%, Microsoft Azure 20%, Google Cloud 15%. The rest of the planet’s enterprise cloud is the other 37%. Intelligence infrastructure has a landlord.
- 01AWSAmazon · −2 pt YoY28
- 02AzureMicrosoft20
- 03Google Cloud+2 pt YoY15
- AWS + Azure + Google, Q2 2026
- 63%
- AWS
- 28%
- Azure
- 20%
- Google Cloud
- 15%
A utility with three meters
Synergy’s Q2 2026 print is the landlord list: AWS 28, Azure 20, Google 15. Together 63% of enterprise cloud infrastructure spend. AWS is still first and still leaking a point or two a year. Google is the one taking them, at a $99 billion run-rate. Oracle and the neoclouds (CoreWeave-class) show up in the leftover 37%, which is where the GPU-rental boom lives. Pair this with Four hundred billion of compute and Seventy-three percent of the node. The model is not the scarce layer. The rack, the wafer, and the bill are.
Share is not growth
A 28% share of a market growing 20%+ is still a monster increment. The investing error is to read AWS’s lost points as a lost franchise. It is a maturing utility sharing a boom with two peers. The neoclouds are a high-beta call on a GPU shortage that can end.
The long view is concentration with a leak
Own the three, sized as known concentration, and the power and networking they must buy. Treat ‘everyone else’ as an option on a hyperscaler pause, not as a 2026 earnings story.
Investing lens
Horizon 3–8 years · Educational, not advice
63% of the cloud is three landlords. Own them and the physical stack they consume. Size neoclouds as a shortage option.
Where the map points
- AWS, Azure, Google Cloud parents, sized as utilities
- Power, networking, and HBM that bill into those three
- A smaller neocloud sleeve if the GPU shortage holds
- Avoid a 37% ‘challenger’ blob with no offtake
What can break it
- A capex pause at the three
- Antitrust that forces a structural change
- Neocloud utilisation collapsing with HBM supply
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimarySynergy Research Group / CRN2026-08-06Cloud Market Share Q2 2026
Q2 2026: AWS 28%, Azure 20%, Google Cloud 15%. Combined 63%. Google Cloud run-rate $99bn.
- 02CorroboratedSynergy Research Group2025-11-19Cloud Market Share Trends — Big Three hold 63%
Q3 2025: AWS 29%, Microsoft 20%, Google 13%, combined 63%.
- 03PrimaryInternational Energy Agency2026Key Questions on Energy and AI — Executive summary
Largest tech companies’ capex exceeded $400bn in 2025, expected to jump another 75% in 2026. Five firms now spend more than global oil and gas production investment. AI factories more than tripled in 18 months.
Keep reading
Five firms, more than the oilfield
The largest technology companies spent more than $400 billion of capex in 2025. The IEA expects another 75% jump in 2026. That is more than the world spends drilling oil and gas. Distribution of intelligence is a capital-stock event.
$400bn+
Big-tech capex, 2025 (IEA)
Seven names, a third of the S&P
Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla were 34% of the S&P 500 in August 2026 — about $24 trillion in one corridor of the market.
33.9%
Magnificent 7 share of the S&P 500, Aug 2026
One company makes 73% of the world’s foundry chips
Counterpoint: TSMC held 73% of pure-play foundry revenue for two straight quarters in 2026. Samsung has 7%. SMIC has 5%. Advanced intelligence has a single address, and it is in Hsinchu.
73%
TSMC share of pure-play foundry, 2026
Seven companies, larger than China
Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla are worth $23.7 trillion. That is more than China’s entire economy, and more than Germany, Britain and India added together. A market cap is not a GDP. It is still the most offensive chart in the issue.
$23.7tn
Magnificent 7 market cap, Aug 2026
Data-centre water, in a field of almonds
Lawrence Berkeley counted 17.4 billion gallons of on-site water at US data centres in 2023. A 2026 path toward the lab’s 38–73 billion-gallon 2028 range still sits near 28. California almonds, from USDA acres at 3.0 acre-feet, sit near 1,355. US golf applied 531 in 2024. The campus can dry a local aquifer. It does not move a national ledger.
50×
CA almonds vs US data-centre on-site water, 2026 path