Three of the four major tech companies have raised their 2026 capital expenditure plans, while Microsoft maintains its target of approximately $190 billion. Meanwhile, Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS revenues grew by 43%, 82%, and 37%, respectively, with AWS achieving its fastest growth in 18 quarters. All four companies stated that external cloud demand and internal AI tasks still exceed existing computing power supply.
This data primarily influenced market perceptions of returns: while capital expenditures continue to climb, cloud revenue, backlogs, and multi-year contracts are also growing in tandem, indicating that new computing power is rapidly translating into business demand.
Morgan Stanley believes that the market's expectation of 29% growth in cloud capital expenditure to approximately $1.2 trillion by 2027 is conservative, as this forecast implies only 7% growth in traditional cloud infrastructure; the bank's own estimate is approximately $1.4 trillion.
