Technology · Issue 02
Four firms, about $700 billion, one year
Amazon guided $200 billion of 2026 capex. Microsoft $190 billion. Alphabet’s April band was $175–185 billion, with the July top lifted to $205. Meta’s band $115–145; Visible Alpha $139. Goldman’s four-firm sum: $725 billion. This is not the IEA’s $400 billion 2025 print. It is the named 2026 cheques.
- 01AmazonFY 2026 guide, includes logistics200
- 02MicrosoftApril 2026, incl. $25bn components190
- 03AlphabetApril midpoint; July top $205185
- 04MetaVisible Alpha; band $115–145bn139
- Amazon 2026 capex guidance
- $200 bn
- Microsoft, April 2026
- $190 bn
- Alphabet band, April–July
- $175–205 bn
- Goldman four-firm 2026 sum
- $725 bn
The IEA counted a crossing. The 10-Ks named the cheques.
The existing module on this desk — Five firms, more than the oilfield — is the IEA’s sentence: large-tech capex exceeded $400 billion in 2025 and is expected to jump another 75% in 2026, to about $700 billion, more than the world spends producing oil and gas. This page is the named 2026 guide. Amazon $200 billion. Microsoft $190 billion, of which $25 billion is the memory-and-component inflation the IEA’s watt story already implied. Alphabet’s April band $175–185 billion; in July the top became $205 billion after a print the rest of the group did not enjoy. Meta $115–145 billion, $139 billion on Visible Alpha. Goldman, in June, added them to $725 billion, up 77% from $410 billion in 2025. Four 10-Ks, one industrial policy.
$200 billion is not a data-centre number. It is a firm number.
Amazon’s guide is capex, including fulfilment and logistics. Treating $200 billion as ‘AI infrastructure’ is the same sin as treating 53 million tonnes as USGS. The investable fact is that four cash-flow machines are now each in the same league as a large oil major’s annual capital budget, and that Microsoft felt the need to break out $25 billion of ‘higher component prices’. That is HBM, that is CoWoS, that is a transformer. Pair with The $1.5 trillion bottleneck and 800 billion of memory. A pause at any one of the four is a cycle. A pause at all four is a regime.
The long view is depreciation versus offtake
Own the scarce inputs those cheques must clear — power, memory, foundry, land with a queue — and size the four spenders as a known concentration, not as a gift. Do not own a 2026 $725 billion sum as if Goldman had audited the useful life of a training cluster. What would change this page: two of the four cutting a full-year guide, or the IEA taking 2026 large-tech capex back under $500 billion. Until then the named cheques and the agency aggregate rhyme.
Investing lens
Horizon 3–8 years · Educational, not advice
2026 capex is a bill of materials. The rent is in what $700 billion has to buy, not in a fifth overlay of the same four names. Amazon’s $200 billion is a firm, not a rack count.
Where the map points
- HBM, leading-edge foundry, advanced packaging
- Power and interconnection with contracted offtake
- The four spenders, sized as concentration, not as ‘the market’
- Avoid treating Amazon logistics capex as AI watts
What can break it
- A hyperscaler pause after an earnings season that does not like the returns
- Component inflation that raises capex without raising useful capacity
- Useful life of a cluster shorter than the depreciation schedule
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.
- 01PrimaryCNBC2026-07-28Hyperscalers face higher capex scrutiny after Alphabet report panned
Amazon $200bn 2026 capex. Microsoft $190bn (April), including $25bn component prices; Visible Alpha $190.1bn. Alphabet top end lifted to $205bn. Meta Visible Alpha $138.9bn, company could reach $145bn.
- 02CorroboratedYahoo Finance / Goldman Sachs2026-06-03Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are about to spend a shocking amount of money to dominate the AI era
Goldman: four firms $725bn capex in 2026, up 77% from $410bn in 2025. $5.3tn 2025–2030.
- 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
The power behind intelligence
Data centres used 485 TWh in 2025. The IEA’s base case still nearly doubles that by 2030 — and AI sites are growing three times as fast as the rest.
485 TWh
Data-centre electricity, 2025
The chip supercycle
Semiconductors did $792 billion in 2025. WSTS’s spring 2026 forecast put 2026 at $1.51 trillion — a 90% leap, almost all memory and AI.
$1.51 tn
WSTS spring-2026 forecast for 2026 sales
Memory is half the chip industry now
WSTS spring 2026: memory alone is forecast at $804 billion this year, inside a $1.51 trillion semiconductor market. In 2023 memory was a $92 billion afterthought. A 250% jump is rationing, booked as revenue.
$804 bn
Memory sales, 2026 WSTS forecast