Guess How Much Big Tech Will Spend on AI This Year
Four of the largest tech companies in the world project that they’ll spend roughly $650 billion combined on AI infrastructure in 2026, representing a historic ball-out for corporate capital expenditures, Bloomberg reported Here’s who’s spending what:
- Taking the cake, Amazon announced Thursday that it’s planning to drop $200 billion on AI, chips, robotics, and satellites.
- A day earlier, Alphabet said its capital expenditures could reach $185 billion, blowing past estimates.
- Last week, Meta pegged its capex as high as $135 billion—an 87% jump from the year prior—driven by the company’s goal of achieving AI superintelligence.
- Microsoft is expected to spend nearly $105 billion during its fiscal year ending in June.
Soon your burrito bowl could arrive via the sky. Zipline’s drones make deliveries by lowering small coolers on 300-foot cables. A drone delivery startup Zipline is in the flying delivery race—competitors include Amazon and Google parent Alphabet—has emerged as a front-runner. For now, initial commercial testing in the U.S. is happening in Pea Ridge and Mesquite, Texas, just outside Dallas. Walmartis the only retail operation Zipline delivers for in the U.S. at present. For future partners, Zipline has designed a small pickup kiosk that can be installed just outside any building. Alphabet’s Wing drone service is already in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, delivering from 18 Walmarts to 40 nearby towns and cities within the drones’ six-mile range. Amazon is operating its drone delivery service in College Station, Texas, and an area near Phoenix, but in terms of scale, the online retail giant remains a distant third.