Big Tech AI capex tracker: Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft in Q3 2026, with free cash flow

This page tracks what the four biggest AI spenders report putting into property and equipment each quarter, what it does to their cash, and what they say they will spend next. It is a log, not an opinion piece: every figure is dated and comes from the company's own release or filing, and each quarter's entry is added when a company reports. The latest entries cover the quarter ended September 30, 2026.

Latest quarter: Q3 2026 at a glance

Added together, the four companies reported about $202.9 billion of purchases of property and equipment in a single quarter. That sum is ours, built from four filings that do not define the line identically: Meta's figure includes principal payments on finance leases, Amazon's is gross purchases, and Microsoft reports additions to property and equipment on its cash flow statement. Read it as an order of magnitude, not an audited total.

• Amazon (reported October 29, 2026): $77.3 billion of purchases of property and equipment in Q3. Trailing twelve month free cash flow was an outflow of $42.4 billion, against an inflow of $14.8 billion a year earlier. Amazon's outlook for 2026 cash capex is about $220 billion. AWS net sales were $46.0 billion, up 39%.
• Alphabet (October 28, 2026): $51.4 billion of purchases, against operating cash flow of $42.3 billion, so free cash flow was negative $9.1 billion for the quarter; trailing twelve month free cash flow stayed positive at $19.7 billion. Google Cloud revenue was $30.7 billion, up 103%.
• Microsoft (October 28, 2026, fiscal Q1 2027): additions to property and equipment of $39,367 million, versus $19,394 million a year earlier. Azure grew 48% and commercial remaining performance obligation rose 73% to $677 billion. Guidance was not in the press release.
• Meta (October 21, 2026): $34.91 billion of capital expenditures including finance lease principal, against operating cash flow of $32.79 billion, so free cash flow was negative $2.12 billion. Full year 2026 capex guidance is $135 billion to $145 billion, narrowed from $130 billion to $145 billion.

What the cash flow says

Three of the four spent more than their quarterly operating cash flow on a measure that matters to lenders and equity investors alike. Alphabet and Meta's quarterly free cash flow was negative. Amazon's trailing twelve month figure is the most negative of the group at $42.4 billion. Microsoft is the exception on our arithmetic, with roughly $18.6 billion of free cash flow, though Microsoft does not report that figure on its release page.

For deeper reading on each company, see our reports on Amazon's filing, Alphabet's filing, Microsoft's quarter and Meta's negative free cash flow.

Guidance log

Only some of the guidance is in primary documents we have read:

• Meta: 2026 capex of $135 billion to $145 billion, per its October 21, 2026 release. The release gives no 2027 capex figure and says Meta is still developing its budget and capacity plans for next year.
• Amazon: about $220 billion of cash capex for 2026, per its October 29, 2026 filing.
• Alphabet: the July guidance of $195 billion to $205 billion for 2026 is reported by XTB; the Q3 release itself has no capex outlook.
• Microsoft: not in the press release. We will add it once the call transcript or filing is available.

How to read the numbers

Comparing these figures needs care. First, fiscal calendars differ, though all four of these quarters ended on September 30, 2026. Second, capital spending is not the same as AI spending: it includes ordinary data center growth, offices and networking. The companies themselves attribute most of the increase to AI, and Amazon does so explicitly, but none breaks out the AI share. Third, free cash flow differs by whether leases are counted.

Why we track it

The race to build more capable AI systems is paid for in chips, power and buildings. The size of that bill sets who can keep competing, how much outside financing the labs need, and what the strain looks like for electricity grids. For the wider background on what a training run costs, see our explainer on AI compute, and for the largest outside forecasts see the State of AI report coverage.

How to use this page

When a company reports, we add its entry with the filing date and the filed line items, and we note any derived figure as ours. If a company revises guidance or restates a number, the entry is corrected in place and the update log records the change. We do not include analyst forecasts as data, only as attributed commentary, and we do not make price predictions or investment recommendations for any listed company. Companies that are not yet in the table, including Oracle, will be added only when their filings give a comparable line. ## What a negative number does and does not mean

Negative free cash flow is not a sign of distress by itself. A company can spend more than its operating cash in a quarter and fund the gap from cash on hand, bonds or equity, which is a financing choice. XTB reported that Alphabet raised about $28.7 billion in bonds and $12.4 billion in equity in the period, a figure we have not been able to confirm in the filing text. What the numbers do show is that the buildout is now large enough to show up in the cash line of the most profitable companies in the world. That is new, and it is the reason this page exists.

Update log

• November 1, 2026: page created with Q3 2026 entries for Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta.

We will re-send this page through the correction loop with each new filing. It will not be rewritten as a new article.