The gobs of money tech giants are pouring into the AI trade coud amount to roughly the economic value of some of the world’s top economies over the coming few years.
Goldman Sachs updated its estimates for hyperscaler capex from full-year 2025 through 2030 on Tuesday. Spending from just four tech giants — Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet — is on track to hit a combined $5.3 trillion by the end of 2030.
That amount is larger than the GDPs of Japan, United Kingdom, India, and France, among more than 200 other countries, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. If AI spend were a country, it could become the world’s fourth-largest economy.
That money will likely be raised through a variety of fundraising methods, Goldman said, though the bank said it believes private markets would play a bigger role in funding the AI buildout going forward.
Across the industry, total spending on data centers, power, and computing could hit $7.6 trillion over the next five years, the strategists added.
“Private construction for data centers has accelerated meaningfully over the past few years,” the bank wrote, adding that it expected the data center buildout to represent a “multi-year investment cycle.”
Investors have voiced some concern over the enormous amounts of cash tech titans are pouring into AI infrastructure, given some uncertainty about the long-term return on those investments.
Tech titans are showing no signs that spending is slowing anytime soon. The four hyperscalers Goldman flagged are planning to spend up to $725 billion on capex this year, according to the latest guidance, more than double the $360 billion the four firms spent in 2025.
Meta, one of the market’s biggest AI spenders, saw its stock jump 3% last week on its plans to start charging users for its AI chatbot, but the company has been punished by investors before for its growing capex guidance.
Google parent Alphabet saw its stock slip 2% earlier this week on news that it was planning to sell $80 billion in stock to fund its AI infrastructure.
