AI Capex Boom at the Crossroads: Are the Hyperscalers Running into Trouble?
The gen‑AI capex boom has been one of the most powerful drivers of the post‑pandemic bull market. Hyperscale cloud providers—Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and newer players such as CoreWeave—have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into data centres, GPUs and networking equipment to support explosive demand for generative‑AI workloads. This spending has turned AI into what one blogger called “the thing that is eating the economy,” with some analyses showing AI investment adding more to U.S. GDP than consumer spending awealthofcommonsense.com. Yet Morgan Stanley believes this party is maturing. In a note to clients, Lisa Shalett argued that the AI‑led rally is “closer to the seventh inning than the first” morningstar.com. The central problem: hyperscalers’ free cash flow is shrinking even as capital investment accelerates. According to research firm Strategas, hyperscaler capex has quadrupled since 2022, depleting cash reserves and halting free‑cash‑flow growth morningstar.com. Without abundant free cash flow, investors may begin to question valuations and demand stricter return‑on‑investment discipline morningstar.com. Shalett warns that rotations into cyclical and small‑cap stocks may falter if the gen‑AI capex boom ends morningstar.com.