Follow the CAPEX: Q1 2026 Scoreboard

All four hyperCAPEX companies reporting the same day makes for a big day in the world’s biggest game!

Our four hyperCAPEX companies spent over $133 billion on CAPEX in Q1, collectively up 4% from Q4 and up 72% from a year ago.

	2025 Actual CAPEX	2026 Guidance CAPEX (Jan ’26)	2026 Guidance CAPEX (Apr ’26)
Amazon	$134.7 billion	$200 billion	$200 billion
Google	$91.5 billion	$175-185 billion	$180-190 billion
Meta	$72.2 billion	$115-135 billion	$125-145 billion
Microsoft	$118 billion	$140+ billion (estimate)	$190 billion
TOTAL	$416.4 billion	$640+ billion	$695-725 billion

 Google (+$5 billion) and Meta (+$10 billion) both upped their calendar year CAPEX guidance, while Microsoft fell into line by providing a calendar year number (vs. just fiscal year). So the hyperCAPEX aggregate guidance is between $695 and $725 billion for 2026. At these growth rates, 2027 could be a trillion dollars of CAPEX!

Aggregate free cash flow is down 10% from last quarter and 13% from a year ago. Odds are this one will continue to trend down and to the right.

Amazon still positive, but barely. Meta and Microsoft are up from a year ago, while Google is down. But all four peaked earlier in our six quarter window.

The primary lament on the conference calls has shifted from capacity to soaring component costs. That means higher investment doesn’t necessarily equate to as much new capacity per dollar spent.

Amazon

Amazon corporate CAPEX was $45.77 billion, up 13% from Q4 and up 83% from last year (including finance leases).

AWS CAPEX was $41.52 billion, up 31% from Q4 and 103% from a year prior. AWS spending was over 90% of Amazon’s overall CAPEX, which is an all-time high (AWS has averaged just 44% of total corporate spend over the last ten years).

Amazon continues to execute on Stalin’s mantra of “quantity has a quality all its own”.

Google

$35.67 billion, up 28% from last quarter and 107% from a year ago.

Already setting 2027 expectations:

“And as a result, we expect our 2027 CapEx to significantly increase compared to 2026.”

The Google Cloud numbers are insane. It definitely isn’t a hobby any more. AI changed the dynamic entirely.

Meta

$19.84 billion, down 10% from Q4 but up 45% from a year ago.

Meta’s Q1 CAPEX has been down the last two years as well, so there is something systemic in their budgeting process that slows down investment at the start of a new year. With guidance going up by $10 billion, they’re going to need to spend $35-40 billion per quarter the rest of this year. Which is almost double their best previous quarter.

Still no insights into how Meta plans to monetize all this infrastructure in the absence of a cloud business. Some words about ad targeting, but their acceleration on that front predates material AI investment. And some aspirational (to be charitable) words about personal agents, but no words about monetization.

Microsoft

$31.9 billion, down 15% from last quarter but up 49% from a year ago.

That is an even bigger decline than “The Big Pause” of a year ago (a full explanation for which we await). It takes a long time to get back in the queue when you take your foot off the gas.

Higher component costs quantified:

“We expect CapEx spend to increase to over $40 billion as we continue to bring more capacity online. The sequential increase includes roughly $5 billion from higher component pricing as well as the impact from finance leases which add variability given the full value is recorded in the period of lease commencement. “

“For calendar year 2026, we expect to invest roughly $190 billion in capital expenditures which includes approximately $25 billion from the impact of higher component pricing. “