New York Times (February 12)
“European leaders have stepped up their push to reduce reliance on big American tech firms like Amazon, Google and Microsoft for cloud computing, and on financial services titans like Mastercard and Visa for payment systems. The move to secure what are being labeled monetary sovereignty and digital sovereignty is part of a broader effort to reduce Europe’s dependence on American weapons, trade, technology and more.”
Tags: Amazon, Big tech, Cloud computing, Dependence, Digital sovereignty, Europe, Financial services, Google, Mastercard, Microsoft, Monetary sovereignty, Payment systems, Reliance, Technology, Trade, U.S., Visa, Weapons
Fortune (February 6)
“The amount companies are spending on AI infrastructure now rivals that of some of the largest economies in the world and is comparable to the annual GDP of countries like Sweden and Israel.” Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft combined are expected to allocate “more than a staggering $630 billion” to CAPEX in 2026 for “such big-ticket infrastructure items as data centers, servers, and power systems that fuel the AI build-out race.”
Tags: $630 billion, 2026, AI, Alphabet, Amazon, CAPEX, Data centers, GDP, Infrastructure, Israel, Meta, Microsoft, Servers, Staggering, Sweden
The Guardian (October 25)
“The biggest owner of datacentres in the world, Amazon dwarfs competitors Microsoft and Google and is planning a huge increase in capacity as part of a push into artificial intelligence.” This has raised “concerns over how much water is being used to cool their vast arrays of circuitry,” as well as “criticism over transparency. Microsoft and Google regularly publish figures for their water consumption, but Amazon has never publicly disclosed how much water its server farms consume.” Based on partial disclosure, Amazon consumes at least as much water “as 958,000 US households, which would make for a city bigger than San Francisco.”
Tags: AI, Amazon, Capacity, Competitors, Criticism, Datacentres, Google, Microsoft, Partial disclosure, San Francisco, Server farms, Transparency, Water consumption
BBC (October 15)
“Silicon Valley is on the hunt for new sources of power to drive enormous data centres and in particular, the high-power chips that have become the backbone of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.” Nuclear power is capturing Increasing attention, especially small modular reactors (SMRs), which “sound like the perfect solution to the growing energy AI demand.” Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. The SMRs being discussed would only produce a small fraction of AI’s needs. Moreover, SMRs generate more nuclear “waste than larger conventional reactors.” Nevertheless, “big tech is making a big bet on nuclear – Microsoft has even recently joined the industry’s lobbying group, the World Nuclear Association.”
Tags: AI, Chips, Conventional reactors, Data centers, Lobbying, Microsoft, Nuclear power, Power, Silicon Valley, SMRs, Solution, Sources, Waste
The Economist (July 31)
“America’s biggest technology companies are combining Silicon Valley returns with Ruhr Valley balance-sheets. Investors who bought shares in Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft a decade ago are sitting on eight times their money, excluding dividends.” Their hard assets multiplied with data center investment and their property, plant and equipment is now “worth more than 60% of their equity book value, up from 20%” a decade ago. Even more eye popping, combined with Amazon and Oracle, their capex spending is estimated to account “for a third of America’s economic growth during the most recent quarter.”
Tags: Alphabet, Amazon, Balance sheets, Book value, CAPEX, Data centers, Dividends, Eye-popping, Hard assets, Investors, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, Returns, Shares, Silicon Valley, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (April 28)
“The Magnificent Seven drove the stock market’s bull run. Now, their bruising losses pose a new test for markets.” Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla “helped fuel a gangbusters rally that lifted stocks out of the 2022 bear market and toward dozens of all-time highs,” with their shares reaching “eye-popping levels.” Now, however, “the Magnificent Seven are off to their worst start to a year since the 2022 slide,” with each stock falling over 6.5%, collectively destroying “$2.5 trillion in market value.”
Tags: $2.5 trillion, 2022, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Bear market, Bruising, Bull run, Eye-popping, Gangbusters, Losses, Magnificent Seven, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Rally, Stock market, Tesla, Value
Barron’s (March 17)
“They’ve gone from the Mag Seven to the Lag Seven.” Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon.com, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Tesla collectively represented over “half of the S& P 500’s gain of 23% in 2024 as they rose an average of 60%.” This year they are “down an average of 15%” and “now account for about 95% of the index’s decline of 6% in 2025.” However, the Mag Seven “aren’t destined to fail or fade into insignificance. They remain too dominant…and too reasonably priced, with six of the seven trading for 18 to 30 times projected 2025 earnings. (Tesla, at 85 times, is the notable exception.)”
Tags: 2024, 2025, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Decline, Dominant, Earnings, Fade, Fail, Lag Seven, Mag Seven, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Reasonably priced, S&P 500, Tesla
New York Times (July 31)
“The technology sector is facing another rough patch, after Microsoft reported mixed quarterly earnings and its shares tumbled. The company’s results are fueling more concern among investors about whether hefty spending on artificial intelligence will pay off, and how long that might take.” The tech giant, however, is confident that its efforts will pay off.”
Tags: AI, Concern, Confident, Investors, Microsoft, Pay off, Quarterly earnings, Results, Shares, Spending, Technology sector, Tumbled
The Week (April 29)
“Sometimes booms go bust. That may be happening with artificial intelligence.” OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and other tech companies “have unveiled gaudy new products with fanfare,” but AI hasn’t revolutionized the way people live, work or communicate. Profits are also “turning out to be elusive.”
Tags: Artificial intelligence, Booms, Bust, Communicate, Fanfare, Gaudy, Google, Live, Microsoft, OpenAI, People, Products, Profits, Revolutionized, Tech companies, Work
TechCrunch (February 11)
“Google is flailing” as it now tries to rush its AI strategy. In contrast, Microsoft seems to be nearing a break-away moment. “The move to integrate the latest GPT model… with Bing and Edge is a kind of forced hail mary, its last and best play in the search engine world.” This move has “clearly rattled” Google, causing its “leadership to swiftly transition from anxiety to full-on flop sweat.”
Tags: AI, Anxiety, Bing, Edge, Flailing, Google, GPT model, Hail mary, Integrate, Leadership, Microsoft, Rattled, Rush, Search engine, Strategy
