- Microsoft kept its AI capital expenditure forecast unchanged, causing its stock to surge about 8%.
- The company maintained its planned $190 billion capex for the year, adjusted to $175 billion due to an accounting change.
- Most cloud giants have been increasing AI spending, but investors are concerned about returns, leading to stock declines for Alphabet, Tesla, and Meta.
- Rising memory chip prices, driven by AI data center demand, account for about 45% of the growth in cloud companies' capex.
- Microsoft's steady capex may imply a slight pullback in building more AI capacity, as rising costs offset spending increases.