![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/013-TEch-companies-ad-spend.jpg\")
\t\tApple, Amazon, Meta and Google all pledged to ramp up AI infrastructure spending\t<\/p>\n\t\t\tFriday 31 October 2025 1:02 pm\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tShare<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tFacebook\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on Facebook\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tX\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on Twitter\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tLinkedIn\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on LinkedIn\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tWhatsApp\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on WhatsApp\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tEmail\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on Email\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\tApple, Amazon, Meta and Google all pledged to ramp up AI infrastructure spending\t<\/p>\n
Federal reserve chair Jerome Powell recently poured cold water on mounting fears that the AI boom is heading for a spectacular bust, arguing that the current surge in investment bears little resemblance to the dot-com frenzy that ended in tears two decades ago.<\/p>\n
In a press conference following the Fed\u2019s latest rate decision this week, Powell stated that today\u2019s AI leaders are not riding a wave of speculation, but rather building real, profitable businesses, and in doing so, powering a crucial leg of America\u2019s economic growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is different in the sense that these companies [today] that are so highly valued actually have earnings and stuff like that,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you go back to the nineties and the dot-com, these were ideas rather than companies. So there was a clear bubble there.\u201d<\/p>\n
His words come in the wake of America\u2019s central bank cutting its rates by 25 basis points, a largely expected move, while investors digested another round of earnings from Big Tech.<\/p>\n
Apple, Amazon, Meta and Google all pledged to ramp up AI infrastructure spending, each brushing off concerns that enthusiasm could overheat the market.<\/p>\n
\t\tTrillion-dollar question<\/p>\n
The root of mounting concerns over a potential bubble<\/a> lies in the scale of investment.<\/p>\n Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are on track to invest nearly $370bn in AI-related capital expenditures this year alone, primarily to fund new data centres and semiconductors.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s chief financial officer, Anat Ashkenazi, told investors this week that the company\u2019s AI budget had risen to as much as $93bn, a huge uptick from previous forecasts.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,Meta expects to spend at the top end of its $66\u201372bn range and warned that next year\u2019s AI investment will be \u201cnotably larger.\u201d<\/p>\n Microsoft, which is partnering with OpenAI, plans to increase its spending beyond $80bn in 2026 as it builds new AI infrastructure across the US.<\/p>\n Those numbers make the early internet boom look modest. In the late 1990s, companies invested billions in fibre-optic cables that would later sit idle, as analysts at the time called them \u201cdark fibres\u201d.<\/p>\n But today, as Atreides Management\u2019s Gavin Baker argues, \u201cthere are no dark GPUs.\u201d<\/p>\n The chips powering the AI revolution are being used as fast as they can be made.<\/p>\n Growth engine<\/p>\n Powell\u2019s point was that the AI surge is being driven not by easy money, but by long-term confidence in its transformative potential.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think interest rates are an important part of the AI or data centre story,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s clearly one of the big sources of growth in the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, Goldman Sachs\u2019 chief US economist, Joseph Briggs, estimated that the productivity gains from AI could be worth between $8tn and $19tn in present value for the US economy.<\/p>\n JPMorgan, meanwhile, forecasts that AI-related infrastructure spending could boost GDP growth by around 0.2 percentage points over the next year.<\/p>\n Powell\u2019s comments landed just hours after several of the world\u2019s largest tech firms unveiled fresh spending plans that cement their role at the centre of the economy.<\/p>\n Google, Meta and Microsoft said they would spend more than previously expected on AI infrastructure this year, even as the Fed acknowledged a \u2018softening\u2019 labour market.<\/p>\n Not everyone is convinced<\/p>\n But there are still objectors. Bill Gates, for one, seems sure that the world is caught up in this so-called \u201cAI bubble\u201d, comparing the current rush of capital to that of the dotcom era.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n