AI Capex Tracker

How much Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon are pouring into AI infrastructure — every quarter, every guidance change, in one place. Straight from earnings reports, updated each earnings season.

Last updated July 2, 2026 · next update late July 2026, after Q2 earnings

Live estimate

≈$22,974 every second

That's what the big four's 2026 plans work out to — about $2.0B a day on data centers, chips, and power.

Est. spend so far in 2026
—
Since you opened this page
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Straight-line estimate against combined 2026 plans of ≈$725B (Microsoft is an analyst estimate); actual spending is back-loaded through the year.

2026 combined plans

≈$720B

+77% vs 2025

Guidance midpoints; consensus aggregates run ≈$725B

Trailing four quarters

$478B

+71% vs prior year

Actual reported capex, all four companies

Latest quarter (Q1 2026)

$148B

+92% YoY

The biggest capex quarter ever reported

Spent since Jan 2024

$805B

Nine quarters of the AI buildout, cumulative

The trend

Quarterly spending has tripled in two years

From $47.7B in early 2024 to $148.2B in the latest quarter — and 2026 guidance says the ramp is still steepening.

Quarterly capex, all four companies ($B)

Calendar quarters, Q1 2024 → Q1 2026 · Microsoft's fiscal quarters mapped to calendar

Hover, tap, or use arrow keys for exact figures. Click a company in the legend to hide or show it — colors stay with the company either way.

Annual capex and 2026 plans ($B)

Whiskers show stated guidance ranges; columns sit at the midpoint

Amazon Microsoft Alphabet Meta
0 50 100 150 200 2024 2025 2026 plan 200 200* 185 135

*Microsoft doesn't guide a calendar year — its 2026 column is an analyst estimate ($185–215B). Everyone else's is company guidance as stated.

The strain

How heavy the spending is

Dollars are one thing; share of revenue is the sustainability question. Two of the four are heading toward 60 cents of every revenue dollar.

Capex as a share of revenue

How much of every revenue dollar goes back into infrastructure

2025 actual 2026 plan

Amazon
18% → 26%
Microsoft
41% → 61%
Alphabet
23% → 42%
Meta
36% → 60%

2026 uses guidance midpoints against consensus revenue estimates. Amazon's ratio is diluted by its retail business — against AWS revenue alone, capex runs well past 100%. Microsoft and Meta are heading toward spending ~60 cents of every revenue dollar on infrastructure, which is the number the "is this sustainable" debate is about.

The companies

Four budgets, four strategies

Same arms race, different bets — custom silicon, leased GPUs, debt financing, and power deals.

Amazon

AMZN Calendar year

Latest quarter

Trailing year

$42.3B

$142.5B

+69% YoY

four quarters

2026 plan

≈$200B company guidance

Mostly AWS: data centers, power, and custom Trainium silicon for Project Rainier-scale training clusters.

Guidance raised 2× since Jan 2025 Reports Jul 30, 2026

Microsoft

MSFT Fiscal year ends June; quarters mapped to calendar

Latest quarter

Trailing year

$39.4B

$135.9B

+84% YoY

four quarters

2026 plan

$185–215B (analyst est.) analyst est.

The Azure AI fleet: GPUs and land, shells, and long-dated power contracts — over half of it short-lived assets like chips.

Reports Jul 29, 2026

Alphabet

GOOGL Calendar year

Latest quarter

Trailing year

$38.9B

$113.9B

+126% YoY

four quarters

2026 plan

$180–190B company guidance

TPU pods and data centers for Gemini training and Google Cloud — servers are roughly 60% of the total.

Guidance raised 3× since Jan 2025 Reports Jul 28, 2026

Meta

META Calendar year

Latest quarter

Trailing year

$27.6B

$85.4B

+101% YoY

four quarters

2026 plan

$125–145B company guidance

Gigawatt-scale training clusters (Prometheus, Hyperion) — the only big-four spender funding part of the buildout with debt.

Guidance raised 3× since Jan 2025 Reports Jul 29, 2026
Annual capital expenditure by company: 2024 and 2025 actuals, 2026 plans, trailing twelve months, and share of combined 2026 plans.
Company 2024 2025 2026 plan Trailing 4Q 2026 share
Amazon

2025 guidance was raised twice during the year, from ≈$100B.

$83.0B $125.2B

guided ≈$125B

≈$200B $142.5B 27.8%
Microsoft

Microsoft guides quarter-by-quarter on a June fiscal year (FY25 ≈ $88B). Calendar figures are derived from fiscal quarters; 2026 is an analyst estimate.

$75.6B $117.9B

guided $117.9B (derived)

$185–215B (analyst est.) $135.9B 27.8%
Alphabet

2026 range moved up from $175–185B in April, citing Cloud and Gemini demand.

$52.5B $92.2B

guided $91–93B

$180–190B $113.9B 25.7%
Meta

Raised from $115–135B in April, citing component pricing and additional data-center capacity.

$39.2B $71.5B

guided $70–72B

$125–145B $85.4B 18.8%
Combined big four $250.3B $406.8B ≈$720B (+77%) $477.7B 100%

Capex includes equipment finance leases where companies report them. Microsoft's calendar years are derived from fiscal quarters; its 2026 plan is an analyst estimate. 2026 shares use guidance midpoints against the ≈$720B midpoint sum.

The revisions

Every guidance change, dated

Guidance is the leading indicator here — actuals just confirm it. This is the full revision history.

17 guidance events since January 2025 — 8 raises, zero cuts. Every number on this page has only ever moved up or held. The first downward revision, whenever it comes, will be the loudest signal of this cycle.

  1. Amazon Held · 2026

    ≈$200B

    Reiterated alongside Q1 results; capex 'driven almost entirely by AWS and AI demand.'

  2. Microsoft Signal · FY27

    FY27 growth rate above FY26's

    No full-year number, but guided expectations up for the fiscal year starting July 2026.

  3. Meta ▲ Raised · 2026

    $115–135B $125–145B

    Cited component pricing and additional data-center capacity coming online sooner.

  4. Alphabet ▲ Raised · 2026

    $175–185B $180–190B

    Cited Cloud backlog and Gemini serving demand.

  5. Amazon Set · 2026

    ≈$200B

    First 2026 signal: 'meaningfully above' 2025's ≈$125B.

  6. Alphabet Set · 2026

    $175–185B

    Nearly double 2025's spend; flagged depreciation headwinds to come.

  7. Meta Set · 2026

    $115–135B

    'Notably larger' 2026 first quantified.

  8. Amazon ▲ Raised · 2025

    ≈$118B ≈$125B

    Second raise of the year.

  9. Microsoft Signal · FY26

    FY26 growth rate above FY25's

    Guided fiscal-2026 capex growth up after a $34.9B September quarter.

  10. Meta ▲ Raised · 2025

    $66–72B $70–72B

    Range narrowed toward the top.

  11. Alphabet ▲ Raised · 2025

    $85B $91–93B

    Third 2025 number of the year.

  12. Amazon ▲ Raised · 2025

    ≈$100B ≈$118B

    H2 run-rate stepped up on AWS demand.

  13. Alphabet ▲ Raised · 2025

    $75B $85B

    First 2025 raise, on Cloud demand.

  14. Meta ▲ Raised · 2025

    $60–65B $64–72B

    Raised on data-center buildout and hardware costs.

  15. Amazon Set · 2025

    ≈$100B

    Set the tone for the year: 'a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity.'

  16. Alphabet Set · 2025

    $75B

    Well above the ~$58B analysts expected at the time.

  17. Meta Set · 2025

    $60–65B

    Announced alongside the Llama roadmap.

The calendar

When the next numbers land

Four earnings calls at the end of July will reset every figure on this page. Come back then — or put the dates in your calendar.

Jul 28 Tue

Alphabet Q2 2026 expected

Watch: Whether the $180–190B range moves again, and first depreciation commentary.

Jul 29 Wed

Microsoft FY26 Q4 expected

Watch: Full FY26 capex total lands; first concrete FY27 guidance after the 'growth above FY26' signal.

Jul 29 Wed

Meta Q2 2026 expected

Watch: Whether $125–145B holds — Meta has raised at four straight earnings calls.

Jul 30 Thu

Amazon Q2 2026 expected

Watch: Whether ≈$200B firms into a range, and AWS capacity commentary.

Add these dates to your calendar Dates are expected until companies confirm, usually ~2 weeks ahead. We update within 48 hours of each call.

The scale

How much money is that, really?

Numbers this large stop meaning anything. Compare the 2026 plans against price tags you know.

Big-four AI capex, 2026 plans ≈$725B

Apollo program $290B

That's ≈2.5× the entire Apollo program — in a single year.

The entire 1960–1973 Moon program, all 17 missions, inflation-adjusted.

Per day
≈$2.0B
Per hour
≈$83M
Per second
≈$23K

The data

Take the numbers with you

Everything on this page, machine-readable. Cite it, chart it, build on it.

.json Full dataset: quarterly, annual, guidance events, calendar .csv Tidy table — one observation per row, spreadsheet-ready .ics Earnings dates for your calendar app

Citing this page

Lycoris Technologies, "AI Capex Tracker," lycoristechnologies.com/ai-capex-tracker/ (updated July 2, 2026).

Data is CC BY 4.0 — reuse it freely (journalism, research, dashboards) with a link to this page. The URL is stable and figures update in place, so your link stays current. Follow updates via RSS.

What to watch next quarter

  • The first cut. Seventeen guidance events since January 2025 and every one was a raise, a hold, or an upward signal. The first downward revision will be the loudest datapoint of the cycle — it hasn't happened yet.
  • Capex-to-revenue ratios. Microsoft and Meta are heading toward ~60% of revenue (charted above). The market's tolerance for that gap is the thing being tested in 2026.
  • Depreciation commentary. As the 2024–25 hardware ages, charges land on income statements. Watch for changes to server useful-life assumptions — extending lives flatters earnings exactly when spending peaks.
  • Power, not chips. All four management teams now cite electricity as the binding constraint. Deferrals blamed on grid connections would be the soft version of a cut.

For why this spending keeps accelerating — and the bear case — read The AI Capex Boom: Why Hyperscalers Keep Spending. Adjacent teardowns: the economics of an AI data center, the AI memory supercycle, and the HBM4 supply race.

Questions

FAQ

What counts as capex in these numbers?

Total purchases of property and equipment as reported, including equipment finance leases where companies call them out. It isn't a pure AI figure — but all four management teams attribute the growth overwhelmingly to AI and cloud infrastructure, and the pre-AI baseline was roughly a third of current levels.

Why is Microsoft handled differently?

Microsoft reports on a fiscal year ending June 30 and guides quarter by quarter, never a full calendar year. We map its fiscal quarters to the calendar quarters they cover so it charts against peers, and use analyst estimates ($185–215B) for calendar 2026. Those figures are flagged wherever they appear.

How exact are these figures?

Actuals come from earnings releases and filings and are precise to about $0.1B. Current-year figures are company guidance, shown as the ranges management stated; charts use range midpoints. Anything that is an estimate rather than a company number is labeled as such.

Is this the biggest infrastructure buildout in history?

In nominal dollars, yes — the 2026 plans alone are roughly 2.5 times the entire inflation-adjusted Apollo program, every year. As a share of the economy, the railroads of the 1880s and WWII mobilization were larger. It is the biggest private-sector capital program ever undertaken in peacetime.

What would signal the cycle turning?

Three things, in order of loudness: the first downward guidance revision (17 guidance events since January 2025, zero cuts so far), changes to server useful-life assumptions that push depreciation up, and management citing power constraints as a reason to defer — not just slow — spending.

Where does the money actually go?

Roughly 60% goes to servers and accelerators (GPUs and custom silicon), with the rest split between land and buildings, and power and cooling infrastructure. The chip share matters because it depreciates over about 5–6 years — which is why depreciation is the next earnings story.

How often does this page update?

Within about 48 hours of each big-four earnings call — four times a quarter. The changelog at the bottom lists every revision, and the JSON and CSV downloads regenerate with the page, so anything you build on them stays current.

Can I reuse this data?

Yes — the dataset is CC BY 4.0. Use it in journalism, research, or dashboards with a link back to this page. The JSON endpoint is stable and machine-readable if you want to automate against it.

Methodology

Figures come from company earnings releases, filings, and management guidance as publicly reported. Ranges are shown as stated rather than averaged (charts use midpoints, labeled). Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta report calendar years. Microsoft reports a June fiscal year and gives no full-year capex guidance, so its fiscal quarters are mapped to the calendar quarters they cover and its calendar-2026 figure is an analyst estimate — flagged wherever it appears. Oracle, CoreWeave, xAI, and the neocloud builders spend tens of billions more; they're excluded here because their disclosures aren't comparable, not because they don't matter. Corrections are welcome via our contact page.

Sources

Changelog

  • Jul 2, 2026 — Tracker v2: quarterly series for all four companies (Microsoft mapped to calendar quarters), interactive charts, guidance-revision timeline, earnings calendar, scale comparisons, live spend estimate, and JSON/CSV downloads. Corrected Microsoft's March-2026 quarter to $39.4B — the reported +84% YoY implies $39.4B, not the $30.9B first printed.
  • Jul 1, 2026 — Tracker launched with annual figures and combined big-four totals.

Citing this page? Link https://lycoristechnologies.com/ai-capex-tracker/ — the figures update in place as new guidance lands, so your link stays current. The combined 2026 midpoint sum is ≈$720B (+77% vs 2025); consensus aggregates including higher Microsoft assumptions run to ≈$725B.