A revised NBER paper modeling the AI investment boom finds the five largest US technology firms are forecast, from company guidance and the authors' extrapolations, to spend on capital expenditure roughly $784 billion in 2026, almost double their 2025 spending
This revised NBER working paper models the AI investment boom. It forecasts that five major US technology firms (Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle) will spend about $784 billion on capital expenditure in 2026, against $413 billion in 2025. The 2026 figure uses company management forecasts for Amazon, Alphabet and Meta and the authors' extrapolations for Microsoft and Oracle.
Verified 2026-10-23
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It puts a researched forecast beside what the biggest tech firms already spent, so you can see the size of the bet.
More on Capital
- While Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Oracle have all sharply increased AI capital spending, Apple's cash paid for property, plant and equipment in the nine months to 27 June 2026 actually fell, to Apple's nine-month capex of $6.8 billion, down 28% from $9.47 billion a year earlier
- A Brookings Papers draft by Columbia's Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh projects that the US AI build-out of 2025 to 2032 will absorb, every year, 3.63% of GDP, versus 2.24% for the railroads of 1870–1890
- Global private investment in AI reached $344.7 billion in 2025, up 127.5% year-over-year, with generative AI companies alone capturing $170.9 billion of that total
The AI boom,with receipts.
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