Big Tech Plans $725B in AI Capex for 2026 as Meta Cuts 8,000 Jobs to Fund Infrastructure

Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta plan combined 2026 capex of $725 billion, up 77% from $410 billion in 2025, with Microsoft at $190B, Amazon at $200B, and Meta guiding $125–145B. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg explicitly linked ~8,000 layoffs (10% of staff, starting May 20) to ballooning compute costs, telling employees there is less capital available for headcount. The layoffs come alongside Meta's construction of two massive AI facilities: Prometheus (1 gigawatt, Ohio) and Hyperion (5-gigawatt capacity, Louisiana). Alphabet's cloud contract backlog reached $460 billion, roughly double the $240 billion at end of Q4 2025. Meanwhile, 275,000 AI jobs sit open across the industry while laid-off workers cannot bridge the skills gap.