Tech inventory futures have been up this morning—contracts for the Nasdaq 100 have been up 0.22% previous to the opening bell in New York—after a fistful of tech firms mentioned they might enhance their capital expenditures on AI, promising an unlimited wave of money sufficiently big to impact U.S. GDP development.
The one unhealthy information? Some analysts have begun to warn that the tempo of capex development will begin to decelerate this 12 months and subsequent.
Shares in Meta and Tesla rose in in a single day buying and selling. Meta was up 7.85% and Tesla rose 3.29%. Microsoft, against this, declined 6.53% in a single day.
All three shares have been pushed by their earnings calls, on which every firm promised to maintain spending on AI:
- Meta mentioned its capital expenditures (capex) might be $135 billion this 12 months, almost double what it spent final 12 months.
- Microsoft mentioned it had spent $72.4 billion within the first half of its fiscal 12 months, and capex in its most up-to-date quarter was higher than the earlier one, however development at its Azure cloud unit was slowing—therefore the hit to the inventory.
- Tesla mentioned it could double capex in 2026 because it shifts away from EV automobile manufacturing towards AI and robots. The corporate additionally mentioned it could plow $2 billion into Elon Musk’s xAI firm, which makes the Grok chatbot.
- In South Korea, Samsung additionally mentioned it could develop AI capex. “AI-related demand [at Samsung] is more likely to proceed increasing, and reminiscence capex ought to rise considerably,” based on Jefferies analysts Masahiro Nakanomyo and Hisako Furusumi’s abstract of the decision. “Capital outlays in 2026 will concentrate on … future enterprise growth.” Reminiscence chip maker SK Hynix will do the identical, they mentioned.
- And OpenAI will take $40 billion in new funding from Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon as a part of a $100 billion fundraising spherical, based on the Monetary Occasions. A lot of that money shall be spent on AI information facilities.
Clearly, tech shares—and people of firms that offer them with actual property, components, and energy for his or her information facilities—are going to be pushed by AI capex this 12 months.
So how large will this incoming wave of money be?
Right here’s a choice of estimates from numerous Wall Avenue analysts:
Goldman Sachs predicts AI capex will hit $539 billion, up 36% from $398 billion in 2025. It is going to develop to $629 billion in 2027, the financial institution mentioned, however that price of development would solely be 17%.
Analyst Ben Snider and his colleagues warn that the expansion price of AI capex will start to decelerate.
“Whereas odds are good that a few of in the present day’s largest firms obtain … success, the magnitudes of present spending and market caps alongside growing competitors throughout the group recommend a diminishing likelihood that each one of in the present day’s market leaders generate sufficient long-term income to sufficiently reward in the present day’s buyers,” they suggested purchasers earlier this month.
Financial institution of America estimates there shall be $641 billion in AI/cloud capex this 12 months, up 36%, adopted by $739 billion subsequent 12 months, up 15%. “Importantly, we flag [chipmaker] TSMC’s CY26 capex information of ~$54bn (+32% YoY) is an effective main indicator of total urge for food for trade spending, given they communicate with all hyperscalers carefully and put down the primary $ of threat capital within the trade,” analyst Vivek Arya wrote in a be aware seen by Fortune.
Wells Fargo sees 34% development in AI capex. “Consensus factors to an enormous deceleration (+34% in 2026E vs. +70% LTM), however their capex constantly shocked to the upside, beating consensus capex from a 12 months in the past by 50ppt over the [last 12 months]. TSMC gross sales additionally recommend Hyperscalers’ capex may develop +49% YoY in 2026E. Our analysts anticipate larger capex for META, MSFT, & AMZN. It’s an AI arms race.” Ohsung Kwon and his colleague mentioned not too long ago in a analysis be aware.
Piper Sandler believes the spending is so huge it’ll enhance U.S. GDP, partially on account of knock-on results for the builders and power suppliers wanted to serve all the info facilities being constructed. “Whereas information middle development spending has elevated ‘simply’ $18 billion, we estimate it’s triggered roughly $175 billion of incremental spending—equal to ~0.6% of GDP,” Nancy Lazar and her group mentioned.
Right here’s a snapshot of the markets forward of the opening bell in New York this morning:
- S&P 500 futures have been up 0.22% this morning. The final session closed flat at 6,978.03 after briefly going over 7,000, a brand new document excessive.
- STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.26% in early buying and selling.
- The U.Ok.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.38% in early buying and selling.
- Japan’s Nikkei 225 was flat.
- China’s CSI 300 was up 0.76%.
- The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.98%.
- India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.3%.
- Bitcoin declined to $87.9K.
