AI capital spending has quadrupled since GPT-4 (in Q2 2023).
33.1% vs 32%
AI-era capital intensity has crossed the dot-com peak on filed actuals (aggregate capex 33.14% of revenue in Q1-2026, against ~32% at the 2000 peak)
$117bn → $448bn
2023 → 2025; quarterly aggregate capex reached $148.4bn in Q1-2026 alone
$239.1bn → $411.5bn
calendar-year aggregate on the cash-PP&E measure, 2024 → 2025
The reading — and its limits
The defensible claim is the growth, which the companies attribute to AI — not a clean "AI capex" figure (no hyperscaler reports AI capex as a separate line; totals include warehouses, offices, other bets). The dot-com-peak crossing was previously stated as a 2026 guidance expectation; it is now an actual (Q1-2026, 33.14%). The five report on three different fiscal calendars, so every observation is mapped to the calendar quarter it predominantly covers.
Method Capex computed by us as a quarterly series from each firm's own SEC EDGAR XBRL filings (Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle), discrete quarters derived from year-to-date facts and reconciled to each issuer's annual figure; the growth rate and the dot-com-peak anchor (Morgan Stanley) corroborated.
Computed 1 August 2026