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Big tech's massive AI spending spree is reshaping investor sentiment and could have ripple effects across crypto's decentralized compute sector
The three biggest names in cloud computing just dropped earnings that reminded Wall Street why AI isn’t a buzzword anymore. Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta all reported results in late July 2026. Microsoft’s stock jumped roughly 9% in after-hours trading on July 29. Amazon climbed over 5%. Meta, despite posting strong numbers, watched its shares tumble nearly 10%.
The numbers behind the AI arms race #
Microsoft’s fiscal Q4 2026 results were the headline grabber. The company’s AI business hit an annual run rate of $37 billion, representing 123% year-over-year growth. Azure grew 43%. Microsoft guided its 2026 capital expenditures to approximately $175 billion.
Amazon wasn’t far behind. AWS posted revenue growth of 28% or more in Q2, prompting the company to revise its full-year capex guidance upward to $220 billion.
Meta raised its 2026 capex range to between $130 billion and $145 billion. The result was a nearly 10% decline in Meta’s stock price amid scrutiny over its monetization timelines.
$725 billion and counting #
The combined projected AI-related capital expenditures from just four companies, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, is estimated to reach roughly $725 billion in 2026. That number is expected to balloon to somewhere between $950 billion and $1.2 trillion in 2027.
Microsoft explicitly credited its OpenAI partnership as a primary driver of its AI momentum. Azure isn’t just selling compute, it’s selling access to frontier AI models, and enterprises are buying.
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