大型科技公司在人工智能領域的開支(再次)加速（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Big Tech’s A.I. Spending Is Accelerating (Again) (1/2)

Despite the risk of a bubble, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon plan to spend billions more on artificial intelligence than they already do.

The NYT - By Karen Weise

Oct. 31, 2025

Four of the tech industry’s wealthiest companies made it clear this week that their spending on artificial intelligence was not about to slow down.

But the outlays from Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon — which all raised their spending by billions of dollars, saying they needed to meet demand for A.I. — are increasingly feeding concerns that the tech industry is heading toward a dangerous bubble.

Artificial intelligence remains an unproven and expensive technology that could take years to fully develop. How much companies will ultimately get back in return from A.I. products like chatbots is unclear. And smaller companies pursuing A.I. gold, financial analysts pointed out, are not nearly as wealthy.

Last week, the Bank of England wrote that while the building of data centers, which provide computing power for A.I., had so far largely come from the cash produced by the biggest companies, it would increasingly involve more debt. If A.I. underwhelms — or the systems ultimately require far less computing — there could be growing risk.

“This is a fast-evolving topic, and the future is highly uncertain,” the bank wrote.

Concerns mushroomed this week after a series of earnings reports. On Wednesday, Google said it was increasing what it planned to spend on A.I. data center projects this year by $6 billion, after dropping nearly $64 billion on them over the past nine months.

Microsoft said it had spent $35 billion in its latest quarter, $5 billion more than what it had told investors to expect just a few months ago. And Meta raised its spending forecast to at least $70 billion by the end of the year, which would be nearly double what it spent last year.

On Thursday, Amazon also said it would be “very aggressive” in adding more data centers and would spend $125 billion this year on capital expenditures — and even more next year.

Google, Microsoft and Amazon, which are the three largest providers of cloud computing in the United States, said they did not have enough computing power to meet customer demand. That’s despite those three and Meta shelling out a combined $112 billion in just the last three months on capital expenditures, which included construction of data centers. Over the last 12 months, the four spent a total of than $360 billion in capital expenditures.

“I thought we were going to catch up,” Amy Hood, Microsoft’s finance chief, said in a call with investors on Wednesday. “We are not. Demand is increasing. It is not increasing in just one place. It is increasing across many places.”

That same day, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, addressed concerns that the A.I. build-out was unsustainable. He said he did not believe the A.I. investments resembled the late-1990s dot-com boom. Back then, he said, there “was a clear bubble” when the businesses driving the market “were ideas rather than companies.”

Now, Mr. Powell said, the largest companies behind the transformation are highly valued and largely funding their expansions from their own businesses, rather than loose lending.

“I won’t go into particular names, but they have earnings, and it looks like they have business models and profit and that kind of thing, so it is really a different thing,” he said.

(to be continued)

Translation

大型科技公司在人工智能領域的開支(再次)加速（1/2）

儘管存在泡沫風險，Google、Meta、微軟和亞馬遜仍計劃在人工智能領域投入比過往更多的數十億美元。

本週，四家最富有的科技業公司明確表示，它們在人工智能領域的支出不會放緩。

但Google、Meta、微軟和亞馬遜的開支 - 都已增加了數十億美元以滿足市場對人工智能的需求 - 正日益加劇人們對科技業正走向危險泡沫的擔憂。

人工智能仍然是一項未經證實且成本高昂的技術，可能需要數年時間才能完全開發成熟。企業最終能從聊天機器人等人工智能產品中獲得多少回報尚不清楚。金融分析師指出，那些追求「人工智能金礦」的小型公司遠沒有那麼富有。

上週，英格蘭銀行指出，雖然迄今為止，為人工智能提供運算能力的資料中心建設是主要依靠大型企業的自有資金，但未來將越來越依賴債務。如果人工智能的表現不盡人意，或者最終系統所需要的運算能力遠低於預期，那麼風險可能會上升。

這銀行寫道:「這是一個快速發展的領域，未來充滿高度不確定性」。

本週一系列財報發佈後，人們的擔憂情緒進一步加劇。週三，Google宣布將今年在人工智能數據庫計劃上的支出增加60億美元，此前九個月，該公司已在該領域投入了近640億美元。

微軟表示，其最新季度的支出為350億美元，比幾個月前向投資人預估的支出高出50億美元。 Meta公司也將年底前的支出預期上調至至少700億美元，幾乎是去年支出的兩倍。

週四，亞馬遜也表示將「非常積極地」增建數據庫，今年將在資本支出方面投入1,250億美元，明年還將投入更多。

Google、微軟和亞馬遜是美國三大雲端運算服務供應商，它們表示目前的運算能力不足以滿足客戶需求。儘管這三家公司加上Meta在過去三個月裡，在包括數據庫建設在內的資本支出方面共投入了1,120億美元，但問題依然存在。過去12個月，這四家公司在資本支出方面的總支出超過3,600億美元。

微軟首席財務官Amy Hood週三在與投資者的電話會議上表示:“我原以為我們能夠趕上” ;“但我們並沒有。需求正在增長。而且這種增長並非只發生在單一個地方，而是遍及各處。”

同在那一天，聯儲局主席鮑威爾回應了​​人們對人工智能建設不可持續的擔憂。他表示，他不認為人工智能的發展能夠持續下去。當時他表示投資情況與90年代末期的網路泡沫時期相當相似， “泡沫顯而易見” ，推動市場的 “與其說是公司，不如說是理念” 。

如今鮑威爾先生指出，推動這項變革的巨頭公司極具價值，其擴張資金主要來自自身業務，而非寬鬆放貸。

他說:「我不會點名具體公司，但它們有盈利，而且看起來它們有成熟的商業模式和盈利能力等等，所以情況確實大不相同」。

（待續）