From an AI spending wave to Palantir’s deepening ties with the US government, tech’s power is expanding – but for many women, safety online is further out of reach
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. This week, tech companies are spending amounts of money that stretch the limits of the imagination. Donald Trump’s administration is spending more money with data analytics and surveillance firm Palantir. And women on both sides of the Pacific face the extreme difficulty of keeping intimate moments private online.
In last week’s edition of the newsletter, my colleagues wrote about the upshot of Google’s earnings call: lots of money earned, but, more importantly lots of money spent on AI. Even more money shelled out than previously expected: Google revised its predictions for how much it would invest in building up its AI capacity upwards by billions. Investors loved it. Shares up.
In the ensuing week, three more tech giants reported their quarterly earnings – Meta, Microsoft and Amazon – and disclosed that they have collectively spent $155bn. Investors expressed elation at the colossal sums. Meta’s market capitalization shot up by more than $130bn. Microsoft’s valuation soared past $4tn, making the software giant the second publicly traded company to reach that stratospheric milestone. Amazon’s financial outlook was murkier, and its shares went down. What a bummer to miss out on the AI stock party.
