Big Tech's $700B AI Bet Strains Power Grids and Carbon Markets
Amazon alone plans to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures this year. That single number explains why power grids, carbon markets, and utility balance sheets are all under simultaneous pressure in 2026. The four largest hyperscalers — Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta — will collectively deploy roughly $690 billion in capital expenditures this year, according to Futurum Research, up from approximately $380 billion in 2025. Nearly all of that spending flows into data centers built to run AI workloads. The financial consequences extend well beyond the tech sector. Energy infrastructure, voluntary carbon markets, and ESG-linked corporate debt are absorbing the shock in ways that CFOs outside the technology industry cannot afford to ignore. ...