Big Tech capex approaches $100 billion and Dan Ives loves it

Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft are approaching a record combined capex spending of nearly $100 billion for the quarter ended in September, as the tech giants plow ahead on AI spending. Their guidance for next year suggests this chart will keep going up and to the right:

Amazon, which reports earnings today, is the only one not expected to hit record purchases of property and equipment for the quarter. The FactSet analyst consensus estimate pegs Amazon’s capital expenditure at $31.9 billion in Q3, down slightly from the $32.2 billion it posted in Q2. (The other companies all reported yesterday.)

For what it’s worth, Wedbush Securities analyst and AI booster Dan Ives loves it. In a trio of notes after earnings, Ives praised their AI spending.

Here’s what he said about Meta:

“While the ultimate level of investment contemplated this year has increased, we believe the spending has been justified, with the infusion of AI capabilities across the company’s ad stack and content recommendation engines driving tangible results for Meta’s Family of Apps and Reality Labs.”

Microsoft:

“MSFT provided another quarter of strong guidance for FY2Q26 as it remains clear that FY26 remains the true inflection year of AI growth for Microsoft with CIOs lining up behind the red ropes to build for deployments in Redmond as the company invests aggressively to capture this opportunity.”

And Alphabet:

“In our view, 3Q performance further validates Alphabet’s position as a leading AI beneficiary, with management already observing tangible results across advertising and cloud.”

On Wednesday, Wedbush announced that the Dan IVES Wedbush AI Revolution ETF, which holds the 30 companies Ives considers the best positioned to cash in on the ongoing boom, surpassed $1 billion in assets under management in less than five months.