Lens · L1 · Demand & Capex
Is the spend being earned back? That's the whole ballgame.
Hyperscaler capex is a ~$340B/yr wager that AI demand is real. The bubble tell was never the spending — it's whether app-layer revenue is closing the gap. Here's that gap, over time.
Why this matters to you
Demand durability decides whether your compute budget keeps growing. The earn-back ratio is the leading indicator for next year's allocation.
Hyperscaler capex guidance
MSFT · GOOGL · AMZN · META · ORCLBig-four 2026 capex ~$600B; full supply chain ~$1T. Amazon ~$200B, Google ~$180B (weighing ~$300B next yr, FCF->0)
Each reading is a dated, LLM-extracted take on hyperscaler capex guidance from EDGAR filings. The numeric_value is the headline aggregate across filers as the extractor finds it.
Software-layer monetization vs. capex
manual Tier CMANUAL ENTRY NEEDED — fill during quarterly review (Tier C signal).
Anthropic added ~$11B ARR in one month (March) — ~ the combined revenue Palantir+Snowflake+Databricks built over a decade
OpenAI and Anthropic each expected to exceed ~$200B ARR this year, aided by usage-based pricing
Profits accruing to energy, data centers, chips, and models — not to applications; app layer net-destroyed value
Anthropic ARR ~$20B, gross margin sub-50%; adds ~$4B (Jan), ~$6B (Feb); reliability low due to compute constraint
Google Gemini ~$5B Q4 ARR after Nano Banana / Gemini 3 inflected usage (from ~nothing Q1-Q3)
Reported capex — per quarter (XBRL)
MSFT · GOOGL · AMZN · META · ORCL| Company | Quarter end | Capex (B USD) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| meta | 2026-03-31 | 19.00 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2026-03-31 | 30.88 | filing → |
| 2026-03-31 | 35.67 | filing → | |
| amazon | 2026-03-31 | 44.20 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2025-12-31 | 29.88 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2025-09-30 | 19.39 | filing → |
| amazon | 2025-09-30 | 35.09 | filing → |
| oracle | 2025-08-31 | 8.50 | filing → |
| amazon | 2025-06-30 | 32.18 | filing → |
| meta | 2025-03-31 | 12.94 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2025-03-31 | 16.75 | filing → |
| 2025-03-31 | 17.20 | filing → | |
| amazon | 2025-03-31 | 25.02 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2024-12-31 | 15.80 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2024-09-30 | 14.92 | filing → |
| amazon | 2024-09-30 | 22.62 | filing → |
| oracle | 2024-08-31 | 2.30 | filing → |
| amazon | 2024-06-30 | 17.62 | filing → |
| meta | 2024-03-31 | 6.40 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2024-03-31 | 10.95 | filing → |
| 2024-03-31 | 12.01 | filing → | |
| amazon | 2024-03-31 | 14.93 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2023-12-31 | 9.73 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2023-09-30 | 9.92 | filing → |
| amazon | 2023-09-30 | 12.48 | filing → |
| oracle | 2023-08-31 | 1.31 | filing → |
| amazon | 2023-06-30 | 11.46 | filing → |
| meta | 2023-03-31 | 6.82 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2023-03-31 | 6.61 | filing → |
| 2023-03-31 | 6.29 | filing → | |
| amazon | 2023-03-31 | 14.21 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2022-12-31 | 6.27 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2022-09-30 | 6.28 | filing → |
| amazon | 2022-09-30 | 16.38 | filing → |
| oracle | 2022-08-31 | 1.72 | filing → |
| amazon | 2022-06-30 | 15.72 | filing → |
| microsoft | 2022-03-31 | 5.34 | filing → |
| 2022-03-31 | 9.79 | filing → | |
| amazon | 2022-03-31 | 14.95 | filing → |
| meta | 2022-03-31 | 5.44 | filing → |
Sourced directly from SEC XBRL company-facts (PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment and equivalents). Discrete quarterly frames only — no YTD estimates.
The earn-back chart — capex series loaded, revenue next
Per-quarter capex is now loaded from XBRL. The two-line capex vs. app-layer revenue chart needs the revenue side — a second ETL pass adding cloud segment revenue (metric_key='cloud_revenue_usd') to the same spine.