Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta spent a record $88 billion on capex last quarter

Big Tech companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta continue to spend big on capital expenditures to furnish their AI goals — a strategy that, judging by their earnings last quarter, seems to be a paying off.

Combined, those four companies spent $88 billion on purchases of property and equipment last quarter — a record, according to FactSet — much of which went toward AI projects like data centers.

In case you’re trying to wrap your brain around just how much money that is, it’s roughly the equivalent of the market cap of Starbucks.

In one quarter.