The four largest AI spenders in tech have collectively added $70 billion to their capital expenditure plans in a single earnings cycle. In roughly four months, estimates got revised upward by over 30%, pushing projected AI spending for 2026 past the $600 billion mark across the hyperscaler cohort.

The spending spree in context

Alphabet and Tesla kick things off the week of July 20, with Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon following shortly after.

Amazon has earmarked over $125 billion in capex across 2025 and 2026. Google’s parent company Alphabet expects to spend between $91 billion and $93 billion. Meta recently raised its capex guidance to a range of $70 billion to $72 billion for 2025 alone.

Capex as a percentage of operating cash flow hit 72% among hyperscalers in Q2 2025.

The crypto angle: Bitcoin miners pivot to AI

Companies like Core Scientific and TeraWulf could derive as much as 70% of their income from AI contracts by the end of 2026, according to current projections. That’s a dramatic transformation for firms that were, until recently, defined entirely by their hash rate output.

This shift matters for crypto investors on multiple levels. First, it potentially reduces selling pressure on Bitcoin, since miners diversifying revenue don’t need to liquidate BTC holdings as aggressively to cover operating costs. Second, it revalues these companies from pure crypto plays into hybrid tech infrastructure businesses, which tend to command different multiples from the market.