How is AI Capex vs. US Defense Spending constructed?
Published by Deepstory Research as the methodology attached to AI Capex vs. US Defense Spending. Scope and source attribution are bounded by that Evidence Brief.
Procedure and scope
Two source-backed charts: 2026 AI capex by company ($B) and combined hyperscaler AI capex versus the US FY2026 defense budget ($B). Per-company figures (Amazon ~$200B, Alphabet ~$185B, Meta ~$125B, Microsoft ~$120B) trace to the cited capex analysis. The aggregate ~$675B is the midpoint of the $660–690B range for the five largest US cloud/AI providers (incl. Oracle), up ~77% YoY from ~$410B. Defense ~$1T reflects $838.7B appropriations + $150B via reconciliation (topline cited near $1.05T). CAVEAT: company capex is largely but not exclusively AI. The popular claim that tech will out-spend the military is a forward projection — in 2026 defense is still the larger number. Re-verified 2026-07-17.
Known failure modes and limits
- Returns on the capex (spend is committed, ROI is not in this index).
- Exact defense-budget line items (defense is a scale comparator only).