Big Tech backing infrastructure
Major tech firms are spending heavily on AI and cloud infrastructure right now, with Alphabet reportedly preparing a roughly $180 billion capital‑expenditure plan tied to AI build‑outs. Industry coverage also highlights a broader infrastructure boom — analysts say AI demand is crossing a roughly $700 billion threshold and Nvidia‑linked investment is fueling RISC‑V chip design funding, including a $400 million raise for SiFive backed by Nvidia interests. (ibtimes.com.au) (ainvest.com) (parameter.io)
Alphabet is pouring more money into servers, data centers and networks as the race to supply artificial intelligence shifts from software to physical build-outs. (abc.xyz) On February 4, 2026, Alphabet said depreciation rose to $21.1 billion in 2025 from $15.3 billion in 2024, and told investors that 2026 depreciation would “meaningfully increase” after heavier capital spending. The company’s investor site also set its next earnings call for April 23, 2026. (abc.xyz 1) (abc.xyz 2) Alphabet had already told investors in its February 2025 earnings call that capital spending would rise as it expanded artificial intelligence infrastructure, with servers first, then data centers and networking. That spending shows up later as depreciation, which is why investors watch both lines together. (abc.xyz) Artificial intelligence infrastructure is the physical layer behind the software: chips to do the math, servers to hold them, networking gear to move data, and data centers to power and cool the machines. Nvidia said on March 16, 2026 that its Vera Rubin platform entered full production with seven new chips and rack systems aimed at “AI factories.” (investor.nvidia.com) Nvidia has also tied that chip roadmap to larger construction plans. In October 2025, the company said partners were laying groundwork for multi-generation, gigawatt-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States, including a Virginia research center set to host early Vera Rubin systems. (investor.nvidia.com) The spending wave is reaching suppliers beyond graphics processors. SiFive said on April 9, 2026 that it raised $400 million in an oversubscribed Series G round at a $3.65 billion valuation to speed up its data-center roadmap, with Nvidia listed among the investors. (sifive.com) SiFive sells processor designs based on RISC-V, an open instruction set architecture that works like a shared blueprint for building chips. The company said the new funding will go toward central processing unit and artificial intelligence intellectual property for data centers, where demand is rising alongside larger model training and inference workloads. (sifive.com) That is the shift underneath the current boom: cloud groups are ordering more compute, chip companies are shipping fuller systems instead of standalone components, and design firms are raising capital to fill in the rest of the stack. By the time Alphabet reports first-quarter results on April 23, investors will be looking for how much of that build-out is turning into revenue and how much is still showing up as cost. (abc.xyz) (investor.nvidia.com)
