Super-large cloud providers are making substantial investments in building the physical infrastructure of the AI economy, and there are hardly any signs of a slowdown.
This figure covers broad capital expenditures, not limited to AI. However, executives from various companies have consistently regarded AI infrastructure as the main driver of the surge in expenditures and have indicated plans to continue increasing investment in it.
Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi stated during the third-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday: "We still expect that our capital expenditures will increase significantly in 2027."
The following is a brief breakdown of some numbers:
Expenditures in the third quarter amounted to $227 billion.
Calculated based on these five companies together, the total expenditure for the third quarter was approximately 227 billion US dollars.
This represents an increase of about 20% compared to the $188.5 billion spent by these companies combined in the previous quarter.
Since 2026, $556.2 billion has been spent so far.
After adding up the capital expenditures of the first three quarters, these five large-scale cloud providers have spent a total of $556.2 billion from 2026 to the present.
The expenditure of SpaceX remains the lowest among this group of companies, at $48.1 billion, but its Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen has indicated that the company expects to accelerate its spending pace in the next quarter.
Fourth-quarter highest estimated expenditure of $272 billion
The implied capital expenditure forecast for the next quarter ranges from $247 billion to $272 billion.
The premise for the lower limit of this range is that both the annual capital expenditures of Meta and Alphabet fall within the lower end of their respective guidance ranges.
According to implicit estimates for the fourth quarter, Amazon will be the only company whose expenses will be lower than those of the third quarter.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy stated during the financial report conference call on Thursday that the company expects its expenditures in 2027 to be "significantly higher."
The highest estimated expenditure for the whole of 2026 is $828 billion.
Due to delays in the capacity of third-party data centers, Microsoft has lowered its annual capital expenditure forecast to approximately $170 billion. Meanwhile, Amazon has maintained its forecast for cash capital expenditure this year at around $220 billion unchanged.
Even so, 2026 will still be a year of significant spending. Overall, these companies' expenditures this year are expected to range between $803 billion and $828 billion.
Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li stated during the company's financial report conference call on October 21st: "Looking beyond 2026, we are still formulating next year's budget and production capacity plans, but we expect to continue making active investments to support our core business and emerging AI initiatives."
