Big tech has spent $155bn on AI this year. It’s about to spend hundreds of billions more
The US’s largest companies have spent 2025 locked in a competition to spend more money than one another, lavishing $155bn on the development of artificial intelligence, more than the US government has spent on education, training, employment and social services in the 2025 fiscal year so far,Based on the most recent financial disclosures of Silicon Valley’s biggest players, the race is about to accelerate to hundreds of billions in a single year,Over the past two weeks, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet, Google’s parent, have shared their quarterly public financial reports,Each disclosed that their year-to-date capital expenditure, a figure that refers to the money companies spend to acquire or upgrade tangible assets, already totals tens of billions,Capex, as the term is abbreviated, is a proxy for technology companies’ spending on AI because the technology requires gargantuan investments in physical infrastructure, namely data centers, which require large amounts of power, water and expensive semiconductor chips.
Google said during its most recent earnings call that its capital expenditure “primarily reflects investments in servers and data centers to support AI”,Meta’s year-to-date capital expenditure amounted to $30,7bn, doubling the $15,2bn figure from the same time last year, per its earnings report,For the most recent quarter alone, the company spent $17bn on capital expenditures, also double the same period in 2024, $8.
5bn,Alphabet reported nearly $40bn in capex to date for the first two quarters of the current fiscal year, and Amazon reported $55,7bn,Microsoft said it would spend more than $30bn in the current quarter to build out the data centers powering its AI services,Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the current quarter’s capex would be at least 50% more than the outlay during the same period a year earlier and greater than the company’s record capital expenditures of $24.
2bn in the quarter to June.“We will continue to invest against the expansive opportunity ahead,” Hood said.For the coming fiscal year, big tech’s total capital expenditure is slated to balloon enormously, surpassing the already eye-popping sums of the previous year.Microsoft plans to unload about $100bn on AI in the next fiscal year, CEO Satya Nadella said Wednesday.Meta plans to spend between $66bn and $72bn.
Alphabet plans to spend $85bn, significantly higher than its previous estimation of $75bn.Amazon estimated that its 2025 expenditure would come to $100bn as it plows money into Amazon Web Services, which analysts now expect to amount to $118bn.In total, the four tech companies will spend more than $400bn on capex in the coming year, according to the Wall Street Journal.The multibillion-dollar figures represent mammoth investments, which the Journal points out is larger than the European Union’s quarterly spending on defense.However, the tech giants can’t seem to spend enough for their investors.
Microsoft, Google and Meta informed Wall Street analysts last quarter that their total capex would be higher than previously estimated,In the case of all three companies, investors were thrilled, and shares in each company soared after their respective earnings calls,Microsoft’s market capitalization hit $4tn the day after its report,Even Apple, the cagiest of the tech giants, signaled that it would boost its spending on AI in the coming year by a major amount, either via internal investments or acquisitions,The company’s quarterly capex rose to $3.
46bn, up from $2.15bn during the same period last year.The iPhone maker reported blockbuster earnings Thursday, with rebounding iPhone sales and better-than-expected business in China, but it is still seen as lagging farthest behind on development and deployment of AI products among the tech giants.Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said Thursday that the company was reallocating a “fair number” of employees to focus on artificial intelligence and that the “heart of our AI strategy” is to increase investments and “embed” AI across all of its devices and platforms.Cook refrained from disclosing exactly how much Apple is spending, however.
Sign up to TechScapeA weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our livesafter newsletter promotion“We are significantly growing our investment, I’m not putting specific numbers behind that,” he said.Smaller players are trying to keep up with the incumbents’ massive spending and capitalize on the gold rush.OpenAI announced at the end of the week of earnings that it had raised $8.3bn in investment, part of a planned $40bn round of funding, valuing the startup, whose ChatGPT chatbot kicked in 2022, at $300bn.
UK Online Safety Act risks ‘seriously infringing’ free speech, says X
Elon Musk’s X platform has said the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) is at risk of “seriously infringing” free speech as a row deepens over measures for protecting children from harmful content.The social media company said the act’s “laudable” intentions were being overshadowed by its aggressive implementation by the communications watchdog, Ofcom.In a statement posted on the platform, X said: “Many are now concerned that a plan ostensibly intended to keep children safe is at risk of seriously infringing on the public’s right to free expression.”The UK government hit back, saying it was “demonstrably false” to claim the act compromised free speech, and pointing to its provisions on protecting freedom of expression.X added in its statement that the freedom of speech risk would not be a surprise to the UK government because by passing the OSA, lawmakers had made a “conscientious decision” to increase censorship in the name of “online safety”
Apple quietens Wall Street’s fears of China struggles and slow AI progress
Apple has been under pressure this year. It’s playing catch-up to its fellow tech giants on artificial intelligence, it’s seen its stock fall by double digits since the year began, it closed a store in China for the first time ever this week, and looming US tariffs on Beijing threaten its supply chain. On Thursday, the company released its third-quarter earnings of the fiscal year as investors scrutinize how the iPhone maker might turn things around.Despite the gloomy outlook, the company is still worth more than $3tn, and it beat Wall Street’s expectations for profit and revenue this quarter. Apple reported a huge 10% year-over-year increase in revenue to $94
Amazon fails to calm tariff worries with worse-than-expected financial outlook
Amazon failed to quiet concerns over how Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs would affect its e-commerce business as it reported its latest quarterly results on Thursday. Wall Street’s affinity for the tech giant faltered in response.The top line numbers from Amazon’s second quarter earnings report exceeded Wall Street’s projections. The tech company beat expectations with its revenue up 13.3% year over year to $167
How will Australia’s under-16s social media ban be enforced, and which platforms will be exempt?
Australians using a range of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and X will need to have their age checked to ensure they are 16 or older when the social media ban comes into effect from early December.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailHow will it work? And what information will people need to hand over?From 10 December, new laws will apply to platforms that meet the government’s definition of an “age-restricted social media platform”, which has the sole or significant purpose of enabling social interaction with two or more users, and which allows users to post material on the service.The government has not specified by name any platforms that will be included in the ban, meaning any site that meets the above definition could be included except if they meet the exemptions released on Wednesday.The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said that the covered platforms include – but are not limited to – Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat, and YouTube.The communications minister, Anika Wells, said these platforms would be expected to take reasonable steps to deactivate accounts for users under 16, prevent children registering new accounts, check ages, and also prevent workarounds to bypass the restrictions
Met police to more than double use of live facial recognition
Britain’s biggest police force is to more than double its use of live facial recognition to up to 10 deployments a week.The move by the Metropolitan police comes as it restructures to cover the loss of 1,400 officers and 300 staff amid budget shortages.Live facial recognition – which involves the matching of faces caught on surveillance camera footage against a police watchlist in real time – will now be used up to 10 times a week across five days, up from the current four times a week across two days.The tactic will be deployed at the Notting Hill carnival over the August bank holiday.An older form of the technology was trialled at the event in 2016 and 2017
Zuckerberg claims ‘superintelligence is now in sight’ as Meta lavishes billions on AI
Whether it’s poaching top talent away from competitors, acquiring AI startups or proclaiming that it will build data centers the size of Manhattan, Meta has been on a spending spree to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities for months now.The massive splurge is paying off, according to Meta’s chief executive. In a new memo posted on Wednesday ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings report, Mark Zuckerberg, describes his ambitions for developing what he calls “superintelligence”.“Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves,” Zuckerberg wrote. “The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable
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