CSP capex to exceed US$600bn in 2026, ushering in new growth cycle for AI hardware ecosystem

As major North American CSPs release their latest earnings and investment outlooks, TrendForce has increased its 2025 CapEx forecast for the top eight CSPs worldwide from 61% YoY growth to 65%.

For 2026, CSPs are anticipated to continue investing aggressively, with total CapEx expected to exceed US$600 billion, marking a 40% YoY increase. This trend highlights the strong long-term growth potential of AI infrastructure.

The eight CSPs include Google, AWS, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle in the U.S., as well as Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu in China.

• Google has increased its 2025 CapEx projection to $91–93 billion to accommodate the growing demand for AI data centers and cloud services.
• Meta raised its 2025 CapEx forecast to $70–72 billion, highlighting a substantial rise in spending expected again in 2026.
• Amazon lifted its 2025 CapEx forecast to $125 billion.
• Microsoft did not disclose full-year figures, but CapEx for 2026 is anticipated to surpass that of 2025.

TrendForce indicates that this recent wave of CapEx expansion will considerably increase demand for AI servers, subsequently driving growth throughout the supply chain. This encompasses upstream components like GPUs/ASICs, memory, and packaging materials, as well as downstream areas such as liquid cooling modules, power systems, and ODM integration. Collectively, these factors will push the AI hardware ecosystem into a new phase of structural growth.

NVIDIA’s full-rack AI solutions are expected to see significant gains as CSPs ramp up CapEx. The combined shipments of GB300 and VR200 in 2026 are now projected to outperform previous projections, with the top five North American CSPs remaining the primary customers. Oracle is likely to experience the most substantial growth, driven by U.S. government cloud initiatives and AI database leasing services.

Accelerated by NVIDIA’s strong market momentum, 2026 is expected to see wider adoption of full-rack AI architectures. NVIDIA plans to introduce its next-generation VR200 rack, while facing increased competition from AMD's Helios full-rack platform, which features Venice CPUs and MI400 GPUs. Meta and Oracle will be the initial users of Helios. Additionally, Meta aims to diversify by deploying NVIDIA GB/VR racks and developing its own ASIC solutions, in line with its goal to increase CapEx by 65% in 2026 to reach $118 billion.

Source: TrendForce, Taiwan.