Four horsemen of the AI-pocalypse line up capex bigger than Israel’s GDP

Steven

Four horsemen of the AI-pocalypse line up capex bigger than Israel’s GDP

Summary

Four tech giants — Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft — plan to spend a combined roughly $635 billion in capex this year, with most of that directed at datacentres and AI infrastructure. Amazon is targeting about $200 billion, Google $180 billion, Microsoft around $120 billion and Meta between $115–135 billion. That total exceeds Israel’s 2025 GDP (~$610bn) and is larger than last year’s global cloud infrastructure services revenue (~$419bn).

The spending war highlights how deeply the leading cloud providers are investing to secure AI advantage, even as returns remain uncertain and investors probe for payoff. The surge is also affecting supply chains — for example, driving memory and component shortages as manufacturers favour datacentre-grade chips over consumer parts. Meanwhile the cloud market continues robust growth (around 30% year-on-year), with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud still dominating market share.

Key Points

  • Combined capex by Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft is estimated at ~$635bn for the year, mostly for AI and datacentre build‑out.
  • Individual plans: Amazon ~$200bn, Google ~$180bn, Microsoft ~120bn, Meta $115–135bn.
  • The sum exceeds Israel’s 2025 GDP (~$610bn) and approaches Sweden’s (~$662bn).
  • Planned capex outstrips 2025 cloud infrastructure services revenue (~$419bn), underlining infrastructural bets on AI.
  • Investor patience is being tested as high spending has not yet produced proportional returns; Microsoft shares fell on investor disappointment after recent results.
  • Supply-chain impacts: component shortages (eg memory) and prioritised chip production for datacentres are pushing up consumer PC and phone prices.
  • Cloud market growth remains strong (~30% YoY); Q4 2025 share estimates: AWS 28%, Azure 21%, Google Cloud 14%.
  • Tier‑two AI infrastructure providers (CoreWeave, Oracle, Crusoe, Nebius) are growing fast — CoreWeave now >$1.5bn quarterly revenue and in the top ten cloud providers.

Context and relevance

This story matters because it quantifies how much the biggest cloud players are willing to invest to dominate AI infrastructure. The scale re-shapes global supply chains, impacts component availability and pricing for ordinary consumers and firms, and signals where future cloud capacity and capabilities will concentrate. For organisations tracking vendor lock‑in, digital sovereignty or market competition, these capex plans are a key indicator of where the industry is heading.

Why should I read this?

Short version: if you care about where AI compute, cloud pricing and hardware shortages are going, this is the headline number you need. Big tech throwing half a trillion-plus at datacentres changes the market — and probably your procurement headaches. We read the figures and boiled it down so you don’t have to.

Source

Source: https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/06/ai_capex_plans/