- Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft’s latest 2026 capex guidance adds up to $720 billion to $745 billion. [1][2][3][4] - Company filings support a cumulative total above $1 trillion since January 2023, but none of the four discloses a complete AI-only capex figure. [5][6][7][8] - The companies use different measures: Amazon emphasizes cash capex, Meta includes finance-lease principal payments and Microsoft counts finance leases when they commence. [5][7][9] - The $1.65 trillion “hidden debt” estimate covers five companies, including Oracle, and combines obligations that are economically important but not equivalent to borrowed principal. [10][11][12]
Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft expect to record between $720 billion and $745 billion of capital expenditures in 2026, based on their latest guidance. The range combines Amazon’s approximately $220 billion plan, Alphabet’s $195 billion-to-$205 billion outlook, Meta’s $130 billion-to-$145 billion range and Microsoft’s accounting-adjusted estimate of approximately $175 billion.[1][2][3][4]
The spending plans put the four companies on course for their largest infrastructure investment year by a wide margin. They also support the broader claim that cumulative capex has crossed $1 trillion since the start of 2023. They do not establish that the companies have spent $1 trillion exclusively on artificial intelligence: the disclosures include traditional cloud equipment, fulfillment facilities, networking, offices and other assets alongside AI infrastructure.[5][6][7][8]
Investors are also confronting a second, much less standardized number: an estimated $1.65 trillion of “hidden debt” associated with five technology companies. That estimate points to a real increase in long-term financial commitments, but it mixes leases, purchase contracts, guarantees and other exposures that should not all be treated as conventional debt.[10][11]
What the filings show since 2023 #
Amazon’s cash capital expenditures rose from $48.1 billion in 2023 to $77.7 billion in 2024 and $128.3 billion in 2025. Amazon says the spending primarily reflects technology infrastructure—most of it supporting AWS—and additional fulfillment capacity. Its 2025 filing separately recorded $2.9 billion of property and equipment acquired through finance leases.[5]
Alphabet’s purchases of property and equipment increased from $32.3 billion in 2023 to $52.5 billion in 2024 and $91.4 billion in 2025. The company said approximately 60% of its 2025 capex went into servers, with about 40% going into data centers and networking equipment. Those assets support Google Cloud, DeepMind, Search, advertising and other businesses, not AI alone.[6][13]
Meta reported purchases of property and equipment of $27.0 billion in 2023, $37.3 billion in 2024 and $69.7 billion in 2025. Adding principal payments on finance leases—the definition Meta uses for capex in its earnings releases—produces totals of $28.1 billion, $39.2 billion and $72.2 billion, respectively.[7]
The three calendar-year reporters therefore recorded approximately $570 billion of capex under their headline definitions from 2023 through 2025. Microsoft’s fiscal calendar and greater use of finance leases require a quarter-by-quarter adjustment. Its cash payments for property and equipment rose from approximately $28.1 billion in fiscal 2023 to $44.5 billion in fiscal 2024 and $64.6 billion in fiscal 2025, while newly commenced finance leases increasingly widened the gap between cash spending and headline capex.[8][9]
Aligning Microsoft’s quarterly disclosures with calendar years puts combined spending by the four companies at roughly $750 billion through December 2025. About $300 billion of additional capex was reported during the first half of 2026, producing a cumulative reconstruction of approximately $1.05 trillion since January 2023. Differences in fiscal calendars, unpaid equipment and lease recognition mean the result should be presented as an estimate, not a directly reported $1.1 trillion figure.[2][3][4][9][14]
How the 2026 range reached $745 billion #
Amazon raised its 2026 plan to approximately $220 billion after initially budgeting about $200 billion. Management attributed the increase largely to higher component costs and said most of the spending would support AWS, including AI infrastructure.[1]
Alphabet raised its outlook to $195 billion to $205 billion after reporting $44.9 billion of second-quarter capex. Its previous guidance was $175 billion to $185 billion. The company is adding capacity for Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, consumer products and advertising systems.[2]
Meta increased the lower end of its outlook to produce a $130 billion-to-$145 billion range. The measure includes purchases of property and equipment plus principal payments on finance leases. Meta recorded $19.84 billion under that definition in the first quarter and $31.08 billion in the second, for $50.92 billion during the first half.[3][15]
Microsoft’s estimate changed for an accounting reason. In April, it forecast approximately $190 billion of calendar-2026 capex. In July, it extended the estimated useful lives of data-center and office buildings from 15 to 25 years. That caused more future data-center leases to be classified as operating leases, which are excluded from Microsoft’s capex measure, rather than finance leases, which are included. Microsoft said its underlying investment expectations were unchanged, while its reported capex estimate fell to approximately $175 billion.[4][16]
The four latest outlooks sum to $720 billion at the low end and $745 billion at the high end. Microsoft’s reclassification demonstrates why that range is not a pure measure of physical construction or capacity: approximately $15 billion disappeared from expected capex without a corresponding reduction in the infrastructure Microsoft plans to use.[4]
Testing the $1.65 trillion “hidden debt” claim #
The $1.65 trillion estimate attributed to Nikkei Asia covers Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle. It is not a total for the four companies in the capex comparison. Published accounts indicate that it combines uncommenced leases, equipment and capacity commitments, guarantees, joint-venture exposures and other future payments disclosed in financial-statement notes.[10]
Those disclosures are substantial. At March 31, Meta reported $182.9 billion of leases that had not commenced, $237.7 billion of non-cancelable contractual commitments and up to $14.7 billion of contingent cloud-capacity purchases. It also signed approximately $24 billion of additional infrastructure contracts in April. The categories cannot safely be added together because their terms differ and the filing does not establish that every amount is mutually exclusive.[12]
Moody’s Ratings used a narrower methodology in February. It identified $662 billion of uncommenced data-center lease commitments among the same five hyperscalers, equivalent to 113% of their adjusted debt. Moody’s warned that even this figure may understate economic exposure because renewal options, variable payments and related infrastructure costs can fall outside the disclosed fixed commitments.[11]
Morgan Stanley analysts describe data-center leases as debt-like liabilities when assessing how hyperscalers are financing infrastructure expansion. That treatment is useful for credit analysis: non-cancelable lease payments reduce future flexibility even when the underlying developer, rather than the technology company, borrowed the money used to construct the facility.[17]
The broader $1.65 trillion aggregate could not be independently reproduced from a consistent set of current filing categories. It appears to mix reporting dates and gross nominal payments extending over many years. The figure is useful as a warning about contractual exposure, but describing it as debt implies a uniformity that the components do not have.
Commitments become liabilities at different times #
Uncommenced leases generally enter the balance sheet as lease liabilities when the asset becomes available for use and the lease begins. Purchase commitments are contracts to acquire equipment, power or services and normally produce an offsetting asset or operating benefit when fulfilled. Guarantees and maximum-loss disclosures measure possible exposure, not necessarily expected cash payments.
This accounting boundary can move large amounts between categories. Microsoft’s useful-life change shifted expected data-center leases from finance-lease capex into future operating-lease expense without changing the company’s stated investment plan. Conversely, when a leased facility opens, years of future payments can move from a footnote into recognized lease assets and liabilities in one quarter.[4]
For equity investors, the most comparable near-term measures are cash capex, free cash flow, depreciation and the revenue generated as new capacity enters service. Credit analysis should also adjust for uncommenced leases and non-cancelable commitments because those contracts can constrain cash flow during a downturn. The confirmed spending plans are large enough without relabeling every future payment as funded debt. The four companies may record as much as $745 billion of capex in 2026, before separately counted operating leases and other contractual commitments.[1][2][3][4]
Companies mentioned #
Further sources #
[1] Amazon raised its 2026 capital-expenditure plan by $20 billion to approximately… ↗ [2] S&P Global Market Intelligence reported that Alphabet increased its 2026 capex … ↗
[[3] Meta’s second-quarter 2026 materials set capital expenditures, including princi… ↗](https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-events/event-details/2026/Q2-2026-Earnings-Call/default.aspx)
[[4] Microsoft said its underlying calendar-2026 investment expectations were unchan… ↗](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2026/earnings-fy-2026-q4)
[[5] Amazon’s 2025 Form 10-K reports cash capital expenditures of $48.1 billion in 2… ↗](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872426000004/amzn-20251231.htm)
[6] Alphabet’s 2025 Form 10-K reports purchases of property and equipment of $32.3 … ↗+11 more
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