Big Tech’s big AI buildout will not end until someone stops it

Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta told investors they plan to spend at least $720 billion on capital expenditures this year, mostly on AI infrastructure, on top of at least $1 trillion in commitments for coming years, even though they have not yet made money from AI. Alphabet posted its worst one-day stock drop, sinking 13%, after acknowledging that Google Cloud's AI-driven growth came at the expense of its core Search business, where ad revenue growth slowed to 12% from 17% a year earlier. Microsoft was the only one of the four to avoid Wall Street's ire, reporting $45.2 billion in quarterly capex, below the expected $50 billion, due to third-party capacity delays, and it later announced a $25 billion bond sale.