Technology: Hyperscaler Capex 2026 Estimates
Jordan Chalfin, CFA - Head of Technology, CreditSights
Michael Pugh - Analyst, CreditSights
12 November 2025
Insights into Technology: Hyperscaler Capex 2026 Estimates, including:
- Record-Breaking Capital Expenditure Projections: Explore how the top 5 hyperscalers are expected to spend ~$602 billion in 2026, up 36% year-over-year, driven by unprecedented AI infrastructure investments and capacity constraints.
- Hyperscaler Capex 2026 Estimates Across Major Players: Discover detailed projections showing Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta each exceeding $100 billion in annual capex, with capital intensity reaching historically unthinkable levels of 45-57% of revenue.
- AI Infrastructure Dominance: Learn how approximately 75% of aggregate hyperscaler capex in 2026 will fund AI-related infrastructure, representing ~$450 billion in AI-specific spending as cloud demand accelerates.
- Strategic Shift to Short-Lived Assets: Understand the evolving capex mix as hyperscalers increasingly lease data centers rather than building them, reducing cash requirements while maintaining flexibility in a rapidly changing technology landscape.
- Financing Innovation and Debt Issuance Outlook: Identify robust issuance expectations for 2026, including traditional IG bonds, private credit arrangements, project finance deals, and innovative structures like GPU leasing to fund the astronomical AI buildout.
Executive Summary
- We are providing preliminary views on hyperscaler capex for 2026, and high-level commentary on issuance needs, and will fine-tune some of these assumptions when we publish our outlook.
- Regardless if investors believe we are in an AI bubble, we expect AI cloud infrastructure will continue to be capacity constrained next year.
- We are projecting capex for the top 5 hyperscalers to increase from ~$256 bn in 2024 (+63% YoY) to ~$443 bn in 2025 (+73% YoY) and ~$602 bn in 2026 (+36% YoY).
- Capital intensity has surged to previously unthinkable levels (e.g., MRQ at 57% ORCL , 45% MSFT), and we expect this to generally increase further in 2026 for the top 5 hyperscalers.
- We estimate ~75% of the aggregate hyperscaler capex in 2026 will be for AI infrastructure; the non-AI portion includes capex for traditional cloud and other business lines.
- We expect a continued shift in hyperscaler capex to short-lived assets since leasing data centers reduces cash capex and provides long-term flexibility, among other reasons.
- We’re expecting another year of robust issuance; in addition to hyperscalers’ IG bond deals, the AI infrastructure buildout will continue to be financed with many types of debt by many players.
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