There’s a peculiar thing happening in Big Tech right now. The companies spending the most on artificial intelligence are getting punished for it, while the one spending the least is quietly running away with the year’s best stock performance.
Apple’s stock has climbed roughly 24% to 25% year-to-date, closing near $338 as of late July. The secret ingredient isn’t some revolutionary new product or a blockbuster quarter. It’s the thing Apple decided not to do: pour ungodly sums of money into AI data centers.
The spending gap is staggering
Here’s where the numbers get genuinely wild. Apple’s capital expenditures in fiscal 2025 came in at $12.7 billion. But compared to its peers, it’s a rounding error. Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft collectively spent somewhere between $360 billion and $416 billion on AI infrastructure in the same period. Apple spent roughly 3% of what its four closest competitors burned through combined.
The gap isn’t shrinking anytime soon, either. For 2026, Apple’s capex is projected to tick up modestly to around $14 billion. Meanwhile, Amazon is expected to shell out between $180 billion and $200 billion, Alphabet roughly $180 billion to $190 billion, Microsoft approximately $190 billion, and Meta between $125 billion and $145 billion.
