(Sherwood News)

Microsoft, Amazon, and Google all have cumulonimbus-sized cloud backlogs

The top cloud companies can’t keep up with the searing demand for AI computing.

Now that Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have reported their earnings, we can get a deeper look at just how much demand for AI computing is fueling their record revenues.

The big three cloud companies all saw double-digit revenue growth (year on year) for their cloud businesses, and are pledging huge capital expenditure spending to meet the white-hot demand.

Microsoft reversed course from its earlier guidance for slowing capex growth, and now is expecting FY 2026 to be higher. Amazon said that it will rack up $125 billion in capex spending by the end of the year, and Google said it should end this year with between $91 billion and $93 billion in capex.

Last quarter alone, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta spent nearly $100 billion on capex to build massive data centers and buy billions’ worth of Nvidia GPUs, which will hopefully make a dent in all of that booked cloud business.

Rani Molla & Jon Keegan6h

Amazon closes at all-time high

Fresh off strong earnings Thursday, Amazon saw its stock price end the week at a record closing high of $244.22.

The stock is up 10% so far this year.

The e-commerce and cloud giant beat analysts’ revenue and earnings, and its massive gain was responsible for more than all of the positive return delivered by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF on Friday.

Rani Molla12h

Google uses an AI-generated ad to sell AI search

Google is using AI video to tell consumers about its AI search tools, with a Veo 3-generated advertisement that will begin airing on TV today. In it, a cartoonish turkey uses Google’s AI Mode to plan a vacation from its farm before it’s eaten for Thanksgiving.

Like other AI ad campaigns that have opted to depict yetis or famous artworks rather than humans, Google chose a turkey as its protagonist to avoid the uncanny valley pitfall that happens when AI is used to generate human likenesses.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

Exclusive | Google’s First AI Ad Avoids the Uncanny Valley by Casting a Turkey

Rani Molla12h

Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft combined spent nearly $100 billion on capex last quarter

The numbers are in and tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spent a whopping $97 billion last quarter on purchases of property and equipment. That’s nearly double what it was a year earlier as AI infrastructure costs continue to balloon and show no sign of stopping. Amazon, which reported earnings and capital expenditure spending that beat analysts’ expectations yesterday, continued to lead the pack, spending more than $35 billion on capex in the quarter that ended in September.

Note that the data we’re using here is from FactSet, which strips out finance leases when calculating capital expenditures. If those expenses were included the total would be well over $100 billion last quarter.

Rani Molla

Slicing the Pie

13h

The best analyst questions from Apple’s earnings call

Apple even answered some of them!