Hyperscaler capex has quadrupled since GPT-4’s release, nearing half a trillion dollars in 2025
Driven by investments in AI, hyperscaler capital expenditures have grown 70% per year since the release of GPT-4, nearing half a trillion dollars in total during 2025.
If this trend continues, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle will spend a collective $770 billion on capex in 2026.
Company statements and analyst projections also anticipate continued rapid spending growth in capital expenditures in 2026, though slower than this trend extrapolation.
Each company defines “capex” differently on earnings calls. Some include finance leases; some don’t. So to build a consistent measure, we went directly to companies’ financial filings and identified cash spending and new finance leases using standardized regulatory tags.
For more details on this analysis, see our website.
The 1.72x annual growth rate is the number that makes me think the capex is actually not oversized. If you model cloud revenue at the Big Three growing at 30% (which is roughly the current blended rate), combined revenue hits ~$585B by end of 2027. At a 35% operating margin and a 3-year payback target, that justifies roughly $615B in annual spend. And that's before agent-driven inference demand kicks in at scale
they were asked to do it to help position for a less than ideal outcome, if it works out then private credit firms are on the hook: https://thecaspianportfolio.substack.com/p/trump-and-xi-positioning-for-deal?r=7q8s4h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true