Big Tech's AI Spending Is on Track to Top $700 Billion This Year. Here's Who May Cash In Next.
Written by Daniel Sparks for The Motley Fool -> The four largest hyperscalers have guided to as much as $725 billion in capital spending this year. American Electric Power's incremental contracted load expected by 2030 has jumped to 63 gigawatts, with 89% of it data centers. T
The four largest hyperscalers have guided to as much as $725 billion in capital spending this year.
American Electric Power's incremental contracted load expected by 2030 has jumped to 63 gigawatts, with 89% of it data centers.
The utility raised its five-year investment plan to $78 billion and expects operating earnings to compound at more than 9% annually.
The numbers coming out of big tech this year are hard to fathom. Amazon plans to spend about $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026. Microsoft now expects roughly $190 billion. Alphabet has guided to as much as $190 billion, and Meta Platforms recently raised its range to $125 billion to $145 billion. Together, the four are on track to spend more than $700 billion in a single year, the vast majority of it on the data centers and chips behind artificial intelligence (AI) . The bills have grown so large that even these cash-rich companies are now leaning on debt and equity markets to help fund them.
All that computing power has to be plugged in somewhere. And that is where a quieter set of beneficiaries comes in: the electric utilities that generate and deliver the electricity these data centers consume. One of the most exposed is American Electric Power (NASDAQ: AEP) , which operates the largest electricity transmission network in the U.S.
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In the first quarter of 2026, AEP signed up another 7 gigawatts of future load, bringing its total contracted load expected by 2030 to 63 gigawatts -- up from 56 gigawatts just one quarter earlier. Nearly 90% of that is data centers, including the same hyperscalers behind that $700 billion in spending, with the rest mostly industrial customers. A single gigawatt can power hundreds of thousands of homes, so this is an enormous block of contracted future demand landing on one utility.
The demand is concentrated in AEP's fastest-growing states -- Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas -- and it is reshaping the company's spending. AEP raised its five-year capital plan to $78 billion, up from $72 billion a quarter earlier, with most of the increase going toward new transmission and generation. Management expects that investment to grow its rate base at nearly an 11% compound annual rate and to lift its long-term operating earnings compound annual growth rate above 9% a year through 2030 -- a brisk pace for a regulated utility.
