From Skepticism to Frenzy! AI Investments Trigger a Tech Stock Boom: Seven Giants to Invest Nearly $4000 Billion This Year
Zhītōng Cáifēn APP has noticed that, previously, investors had reservations about pouring massive sums of money into technology companies' artificial intelligence (AI) ventures. However, this season's financial reports have completely rewritten this narrative.
When Microsoft (MSFT.US), Meta (META.US), and Alphabet (GOOGL.US) - the giants of the tech world - announced that they would invest hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain their leading positions in this intense AI competition, the market responded with applause - as long as core revenue and profits continued to soar.
Generative AI has become an open secret in the emerging technology field, driving the current market. This is propelling all tech giants to spare no expense in competing for dominance. As more and more companies integrate AI into their ecosystems and shift their computing power requirements to the cloud, tech companies' investments in AI products and data centers are becoming increasingly logical.
Microsoft's stock price surged last Thursday, with this AI giant breaking through the $40 trillion mark, joining the top-tier club alongside AI leader NVIDIA (NVDA.US). Investors welcomed the company's record-breaking $30 billion capital expenditure, guided by Azure cloud computing business exceeding expectations and outlook, which certified its AI business' enduring potential, dispelling concerns over costs.
No exception was Meta, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg declaring that he would "push forward" in AI with full force, raising his annual capital expenditure guidance to $66-72 billion. This statement propelled Meta's stock price to soar 13% to a new high.
Wedbush analyst Dan Evans dubbed it the "AI Revolution's Tipping Point," pointing out that the market severely underestimated the massive AI-driven growth that the seven giants - including Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon - were poised to unleash.
The other members of this elite club are also not holding back: Google parent company Alphabet announced in its quarterly report that its cloud business grew 32%, with a capital expenditure forecast of $75 billion for 2025, mainly for AI infrastructure. Meanwhile, Amazon's second-quarter spending reached $31.4 billion, with expectations to maintain this investment intensity throughout the year - a total of $11.8 trillion.
A significant portion of these massive investments is being made in recruiting top AI talent from competitors like OpenAI, Apple, and Google. Zuckerberg led the charge, investing tens of billions of dollars in poaching engineers and researchers from these rivals to accelerate superintelligence research. These four companies, which had previously been criticized for over-investing capital, are expected to collectively invest nearly $4000 billion this year.
Evans emphasized that ""The fourth industrial revolution led by NVIDIA, Microsoft, Palantir, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon is just getting started." In this AI arms race, the market is voting with real money: as long as tech giants can prove that their investments translate into tangible growth, the burn-and-build strategy will remain a winning formula.