Hyperscalers eye $660–750B 2026 capex

Wall Street’s latest read on Big Tech’s buildout is simple: the AI infrastructure race got bigger again in early 2026. CreditSights now projects about $750 billion of 2026 capital spending across Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle. (know.creditsights.com) That forecast was raised after calendar fourth-quarter 2025 earnings calls, when Alphabet, Amazon and Meta all gave 2026 spending plans above prior estimates. CreditSights said its new figure was up from about $620 billion in January 2026 and about $600 billion in November 2025. (know.creditsights.com) The company-specific numbers are driving the jump. Amazon said it expects about $200 billion of 2026 capex, Alphabet guided to $175 billion to $185 billion, and Meta forecast $115 billion to $135 billion. (cnbc.com) (datacenterdynamics.com) Other analysts are slightly lower, but the direction is the same. Futurum said the five biggest U.S. cloud and AI infrastructure providers have committed to between $660 billion and $690 billion in 2026 capex, while Goldman Sachs said Wall Street consensus had already climbed to $527 billion by December 2025 and was still moving higher. (futurumgroup.com) (goldmansachs.com) What are they buying? Mostly the physical guts of AI: graphics processors, custom chips, servers, networking gear, storage, land, power equipment and new data centers. MUFG said roughly 75% of big-five hyperscaler capex, or about $450 billion on a $602 billion base case, is tied directly to AI infrastructure rather than traditional cloud expansion. (mufgamericas.com) The spending wave is also changing how the companies fund themselves. MUFG said aggregate capex for the big five has moved above projected free cash flow once buybacks and dividends are included, forcing greater use of bond markets and other outside financing. (mufgamericas.com) CNBC reported that Amazon could swing to negative free cash flow in 2026 under some analyst models, and that Alphabet sold $25 billion of bonds in November 2025 as long-term debt climbed to $46.5 billion. CreditSights separately said there may be upside to its earlier forecast of about $93 billion in 2026 hyperscaler U.S. debt issuance. (cnbc.com) (know.creditsights.com) The bottlenecks are no longer just chips. Goldman Sachs said supply constraints and investor appetite, not cash or balance-sheet capacity, are more likely to limit spending, while multiple analyst notes point to pressure on electricity, data-center construction and related equipment. (goldmansachs.com) (futurumgroup.com) That leaves 2026 looking less like a normal tech investment cycle and more like an industrial buildout. The question has shifted from whether hyperscalers will spend to whether grids, suppliers and capital markets can keep up. (know.creditsights.com) (goldmansachs.com)