Big tech has spent $155bn on AI this year. It's about to spend hundreds of billions more

Big tech has spent $155bn on AI this year. It’s about to spend hundreds of billions more | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

Tech giants have spent more on AI than the US government has on education, jobs and social services in 2025 so far

theguardian.com

Big Tech has already splurged a jaw-dropping $155 billion on AI this year—more than the entire US government has shelled out on education, training and social services in fiscal 2025. Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet each reported YTD capital expenditures in the tens of billions (Meta $30.7 billion, Alphabet nearly $40 billion, Amazon $55.7 billion and Microsoft over $30 billion this quarter), all funneled into power-hungry data centers and expensive chips that underpin generative AI.

And things are only heating up. Next fiscal year, those four giants plan to drop over $400 billion combined (Microsoft ~$100 billion, Meta $66–72 billion, Alphabet $85 billion and Amazon up to $118 billion on AWS). Even Apple, long seen as the cautious spender, bumped capex to $3.46 billion last quarter and is shifting teams toward AI. Riding the same wave, OpenAI just raised $8.3 billion as part of a $40 billion round, valuing it at a cool $300 billion.