In the last week of April 2026, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta reported their first-quarter results within forty-eight hours of one another.

The Big Four lifted their 2026 capex guides in unison. Apple reported the day after, decreasing capex year-over-year — and announcing a structural break from its decade-old “net cash neutral” policy.

The Financial Times then compiled the totals: $725 billion combined for the Big Four in 2026, up 77% from $410B in 2025 — the largest single-year concentrated infrastructure cycle in the history of technology.

Q1 alone saw the Big Four spend $130 billion combined — 3.7× the $35 billion they spent in Q1 2023.