AI spending growth soars however no returns for large tech giants, warns Jefferies’ Chris Wooden
In response to Jefferies’ Christopher Wooden, international head of fairness technique, the size of spending by US hyperscalers has reached some extent the place it’s consuming an more and more giant share of their money flows, notably on chips and reminiscence. Primarily based on the newest firm steering, capex as a share of working money move for the 4 main US hyperscalers has surged from 41% in 2023 to a projected 92% in 2026.
A good portion of that is being directed in the direction of reminiscence alone, which is estimated to account for about 30% of complete capex, implying roughly 28% of working money move being absorbed by reminiscence investments this 12 months, he mentioned in his Greed and Concern report.
This rising depth of funding brings into focus a extra elementary query: monetisation. A latest Jefferies report led by Edison Lee highlights that the challenges round AI enterprise fashions stay underestimated. The rising value of staying aggressive, pushed by greater compute, reminiscence, and energy necessities, means that sustainable profitability for pure AI mannequin gamers stays distant.
Wooden aligns with this view. His base case is that AI could finally resemble a capital-intensive business like airways, moderately than the high-margin, winner-takes-all dynamics seen within the web period.
Even so, the present part of spending exhibits little signal of slowing. Massive Tech firms proceed to push forward with aggressive capex plans. Microsoft expects to spend $190 billion this 12 months, together with about $25 billion attributed to greater element prices. Alphabet and Meta have each raised their 2026 capex steering to $180–190 billion and $125–145 billion, respectively, whereas Amazon has maintained its steering at $200 billion.
Amongst these, investor considerations seem extra pronounced within the case of Meta, which lacks the identical direct cloud-driven advantages from AI spending as friends like Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.For now, the “picks and shovels” commerce stays intact, supported by continued spending and restricted pushback from buyers on returns.
Nonetheless, early indicators of pressure are starting to floor. A latest report famous that OpenAI has missed inside targets for each person progress and revenues, together with a aim of reaching 1 billion weekly energetic customers for ChatGPT by the tip of final 12 months. The corporate has additionally reportedly fallen in need of a number of month-to-month income targets in 2026, whereas dealing with elevated competitors.
Market share tendencies mirror this shift. Over the previous 12 months to March, Gemini’s share of net visitors within the generative AI market has risen sharply from 6% to 25.5%, whereas ChatGPT’s share has declined from 77.4% to 56.7%, in line with SimilarWeb information.
On the similar time, considerations have been raised about financing constructions throughout the ecosystem, the place companions comparable to Nvidia and Oracle present funding to OpenAI, which in flip makes use of that capital to buy compute from them.
Competitors can also be intensifying. Anthropic reported in early April that its annualised income run charge has exceeded $30 billion, up from round $9 billion on the finish of 2025, now surpassing OpenAI’s reported run charge of over $25 billion in February.
Taken collectively, the image that emerges is one among escalating funding, rising aggressive strain, and unresolved questions round returns. The spending cycle continues, however the pressure it locations on money flows and the uncertainty round monetisation have gotten more and more tough to disregard.
(Disclaimer: Suggestions, strategies, views and opinions given by the consultants are their very own. These don’t characterize the views of The Financial Instances)
