With Chinese-US relations tense to see who can dominate the AI landscape, 2025 is forecast to be another arms race for big tech companies to boost their investment and proposition.
Amazon has already forged a $100bn-plus investment in its infrastructure this year, whilst spending by four US tech giants increased by 63% last year. Although AI can be divisive, no country wants to be on the periphery as it drives astronomical economic growth and transforms lives forever.
A coalition of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta have combined their capital spending which could reach $320bn this year compared to $151bn in 2023. AI expenditure is uncontrollable at present to compete internationally with building data centres, cognitive language models, more cost-effective solutions, and biometrics; whilst the concern is always about adding to the fraudsters’ toolbox.
Fourth- quarter earning rankings of the four companies demonstrated the scale of their ambitions, reported in the Financial Times. Then the release of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI invention that under-cut competitors, caused major upheaval. It wiped out $200bn of market value for Microsoft and Alphabet, while chip giant Nvidia suffered a $600bn loss.
Shareholders want to see an increase in revenues and growth to make investors more comfortable spending more.
