Big tech is still battling on with AI

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Big Tech’s AI spending spree is going full throttle. Amazon alone plans to invest over $100bn this year, outpacing its rivals and dismissing any worries about weak returns. Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon together spent $246bn on capital expenditure in 2024 – that’s up from $151bn in 2023 – and they’re set to surpass $320bn soon. Investors are nervous about dumping huge sums into cutting-edge research, especially after Chinese start-up DeepSeek unveiled a cheaper AI model that rattled the market and wiped billions off Nvidia’s share price.

Despite the jitters, tech leaders are holding their nerve. Sundar Pichai believes Google’s $75 billion push for 2025 will keep it on top, while Satya Nadella sees Microsoft’s $80 billion Azure expansion as a crucial pivot to cement early gains from its OpenAI partnership. Amazon’s Andy Jassy has gone even bigger with a forecast of $100 billion for data centres and servers to power AWS.