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Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta collectively guided to ~$710B in 2026 AI capital expenditures, up from ~$350B in 2025. The sheer scale of the buildout — data centers, custom silicon, memory — has reset expectations for the entire AI supply chain. Market reaction was bifurcated: companies showing clear ROI (Alphabet, Amazon) were rewarded; those with murkier monetization paths (Meta, Microsoft) were punished.
Google Cloud revenue hit $20B in Q1, growing 63% YoY vs. Street estimates of ~47%. Consolidated revenue rose 22% to $109.9B. Capex guidance raised to $180B–$190B, but the market didn't flinch — ROI visibility carried the day. At least six firms hiked price targets, including Susquehanna to $460, TD Cowen to $450, and Canaccord to $450. TD Cowen called the cloud print a "monster AI inflection point."
Meta dropped ~9% after raising 2026 capex guidance to $125B–$145B (from $115B–$135B) and missing on user growth due to Iran internet disruptions. JPMorgan cut to Neutral with a $725 PT (from $825), citing a "challenging path" to AI monetization without a cloud business. JPM projects negative free cash flow of $4B in 2026 and $24B in 2027 at these spend levels. Revenue was up 33%, but investors focused squarely on the spend trajectory.
Apple beat across the board: EPS of $2.01 vs. $1.96 est., revenue of $111.2B vs. $109.7B est., up 17% YoY. Services hit an all-time high of $31B. The company guided Q3 revenue growth of 14%–17%, well above consensus. A new $100B share buyback program was announced. Apple's "wait-and-see" AI strategy (Gemini-powered Siri due later in 2026) isn't spooking investors — execution on the core business is carrying the stock.
Microsoft reported EPS of $4.27 (beat by $0.21) and Azure growth of 40%, but the headline was the $190B capex forecast for calendar 2026, up 61% YoY, with $25B attributed to higher memory prices. The stock is now down 12% YTD — its worst stretch since 2008. Seeking Alpha analysts note the sell-off "doesn't make any sense" given the demand signals, but margin compression fears are dominating sentiment.
AWS revenue grew 28% YoY — the fastest in 15 quarters — and is now on a $150B annualized run rate. The $364B backlog (which excludes a $100B+ Anthropic deal) grew nearly 50% QoQ. At least 14 Wall Street firms lifted price targets into the $310–$350 range. Amazon guided Q2 net sales of $194B–$199B. The bull case: AWS is now the clearest infrastructure winner of the AI buildout.
Riot Platforms surged after Q1 results showed $33.2M in data center revenue. The key catalyst: AMD doubled its contracted capacity at Riot's Rockdale, TX facility, exercising an option for an additional 25 MW (delivery Nov 2026) on top of 20 MW being delivered in May. Revenue rose 3.6% YoY to $167.2M. The pivot from pure Bitcoin mining to AI data center hosting is starting to show real commercial traction.
Palantir reports Q1 on Sunday May 4. The stock is down ~20% in 2026 despite signing a record $4.3B in new contracts last quarter (+138% YoY). The P/E ratio sits at 226x. Analysts are split — bulls point to government AI demand acceleration, bears cite intensifying competition and stretched multiples. This earnings print will likely be the most volatile single-day event of the week.
Super Micro rallied 25% in April on momentum from $13B+ in Blackwell Ultra orders and rack capacity scaling to 6,000/month. But the DOJ indictment of co-founder Wally Liaw for $2.5B in Nvidia chip smuggling to China remains unresolved, along with multiple securities fraud class actions. Analysts model $0.55–$0.63 EPS on ~$12.4B revenue. The consensus rating is Hold with a $35.38 PT. High-risk, high-reward setup.
Nvidia didn't report this week, but it was arguably the biggest beneficiary of the earnings cycle. Every major cloud provider reaffirmed or raised AI infrastructure spend, and Nvidia's GPU and networking hardware sits at the center of virtually all of it. The stock trades at ~$187 with a median analyst PT of $250 (33% upside). The SMCI smuggling case is a regulatory overhang, but demand signals have never been stronger.