{"id":277802,"date":"2026-02-06T20:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/277802\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T20:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:39:13","slug":"ai-splurge-and-cloud-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/277802\/","title":{"rendered":"AI splurge and cloud growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">By Harshita Mary Varghese and Anhata Rooprai<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Feb 6 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. tech giants have predicted their spending would surge this year as \u200bthey double down on <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/ai\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:artificial intelligence;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artificial intelligence<\/a>, sharpening investor scrutiny over \u200cwhether these costly bets would generate enough returns to justify the sector&#8217;s high valuations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The group &#8211; \u200cincluding Alphabet, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/organizations\/microsoft\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:Microsoft;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft<\/a>, Amazon and Meta &#8211; is expected to pour more than $630 billion combined largely into artificial intelligence this year, even as returns so far have lagged the pace of growth in the outlays.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">&#8220;Investors right now are not \u2060forgiving about large investments \u200cwithout clear signal on return on invested capital,&#8221; analysts at Morgan Stanley said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Below is a snapshot of how the \u200dcompanies fared in the December quarter:<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">CAPITAL EXPENDITURE<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Amazon.com, once seen as a laggard in the AI race, is leading the charge with $200 billion reserved in spending. Alphabet is \u200bclose behind with as much as $185 billion, while Meta has projected \u200cup to $135 billion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">CLOUD REVENUE<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Google Cloud notched the fastest growth among the three major U.S. cloud providers in the reported quarter with a rise of 48%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">While the business is smaller than its major rivals, strong adoption of the latest Gemini model has led some analysts to say that Alphabet has \u2060taken the lead in the AI race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Amazon \u200bWeb Services &#8211; the largest cloud player &#8211; meanwhile \u200bposted a revenue growth of 24%, while Microsoft&#8217;s Azure reported a 39% increase.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">UNEVEN PROFIT<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Rising expenses weighed on profit growth at \u200dAmazon and Meta \u2060in the quarter, while Microsoft reported its strongest profit growth in two years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">MARKET CAP GROWTH<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Optimism about Gemini and Google&#8217;s deal to power \u2060<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/organizations\/apple\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:Apple;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple<\/a>&#8216;s revamped Siri have also boosted Alphabet&#8217;s share price, which has in recent months far \u200coutperformed its rivals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese and Anhata Rooprai \u200cin Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Harshita Mary Varghese and Anhata Rooprai Feb 6 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. tech giants have predicted their spending&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,5472,343,344,85,46,134,44170,13604,17582,931,125],"class_list":["post-277802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alphabet","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-microsoft","tag-profit-growth","tag-reported-quarter","tag-revenue-growth","tag-spending","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}