Bank of America projects that hyperscale cloud vendors' capital expenditures will exceed $860 billion in 2026, representing a year-on-year increase of approximately 80%; and further approach $1.2 trillion in 2027, an increase of approximately 38%. The combined order backlog for cloud businesses from Microsoft, Oracle, AWS, and Google exceeds $2.3 trillion, a 16% quarter-on-quarter increase, providing high visibility for future investments.
Furthermore, this round of AI infrastructure expansion will primarily drive demand for computing, storage, semiconductor equipment, power semiconductors, and optical communications. As AI agents and inference applications expand, server demand for HBM, DRAM, and SSD configurations will continue to increase, with storage demand growth potentially outpacing GPU shipments.
Meanwhile, capital expenditures exceeding operating cash flow will suppress the free cash flow of tech giants, but these companies can still raise funds through debt and equity markets. Bank of America views this expansion as a multi-year infrastructure construction cycle and believes that the growth in cloud orders is increasing the visibility of AI investment returns.
