The AI boom now runs on borrowed money
The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52 per cent on Thursday, to 24,315, its worst day since April 2025.
Tech
AI is coming for software companies
Enterprise software stocks crashed in early February, and specialist software ETFs fell deep into correction territory.
Big Tech's AI spending passes $600bn
Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon together now expect to spend more than $600 billion on capital projects in 2026, according to guidance given with their fourth-quarter results.
Nvidia's $57bn quarter doesn't end the bubble debate
Nvidia reported $57 billion of revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2026, another huge number and comfortably ahead of Wall Street's consensus forecast.
AI's biggest spenders feel the credit squeeze
The primary corporate bond market is struggling to digest a flood of debt from the companies spending most on artificial intelligence, and institutional credit portfolios are full.
Meta borrows $30bn for AI
Meta Platforms has sold $30 billion of investment-grade bonds in several tranches, a deal of a size rarely seen, to pay for its artificial intelligence spending plans.
Special Report
Halloween: The scariest balance sheets in AI
Nvidia's market capitalization passed $5 trillion on 29 October, making it the world's most valuable company.
The AI money loop
Look closely at the venture deals financing the artificial intelligence boom and a circular pattern appears, one that recalls the worst speculative habits of the dot-com era.
Nvidia's China problem
Nvidia reported revenue of $46.7 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2026, another very strong result.
Nvidia pays Washington to sell to China
Washington has agreed to let Nvidia resume sales of its customised H20 artificial intelligence chips to China, on condition that the company hands 15 per cent of the revenue straight to the US Treasury.
Tariffs haven't dented Big Tech's AI spending
Alphabet has confirmed that its capital spending will run above $75 billion a year, and Microsoft and Meta have repeated their own large plans for AI infrastructure.
Nvidia's margins slip
Nvidia reported fourth-quarter revenue of $39.3 billion, evidence that demand for its chips is still enormous.
Big Tech keeps spending after DeepSeek
Meta raised its 2025 capex forecast to $60–$65 billion in late January, and Microsoft said annual infrastructure spending would approach $80 billion.
Microsoft reopens Three Mile Island
Microsoft has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement that will bring the shuttered Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island back into service.
Nvidia beats and still falls
Nvidia's second-quarter revenue rose 122 per cent to $30 billion, ahead of consensus forecasts.
Nvidia becomes the world's most valuable company
Nvidia overtook Microsoft on 18 June to become the world's most valuable listed company, with a market value of $3.34 trillion.
Nvidia hits $3trn, and index funds are along for the ride
Nvidia's market value passed $3 trillion on 5 June, overtaking Apple to make it the second most valuable company in the world.
Nvidia's boom: peak or plateau?
Nvidia's data centre revenue reached $22.6 billion in the first quarter, up 427 per cent from a year earlier.
Apple's record $110bn buyback
Apple has authorized a $110 billion share buyback, the largest in American corporate history, alongside a modest dividend increase.
Meta spends more, investors flee
Meta Platforms shares fell 10.5 per cent in a single session after first-quarter results that were, on the face of it, solid.
Big Tech is now in the power business
Amazon has paid $650 million for a data centre campus wired directly to Talen Energy’s Susquehanna nuclear power station.
Nvidia adds $277bn in a day
Nvidia added $277 billion to its market value on 22 February, more than the entire worth of most companies in the S&P 500.
Meta pays its first dividend
Meta Platforms announced its first quarterly dividend, of $0.50 a share, together with a $50 billion addition to its share buyback programme.
OpenAI's boardroom drama and Microsoft's $13bn exposure
Sam Altman was pushed out of OpenAI over a weekend and reinstated days later, an episode governance scholars will study for years as farce.
Alphabet spends more, grows less, and pays for it
Alphabet's shares fell 9.5 per cent in a single session after its third-quarter results, wiping $160 billion off its market value.
Special Report
Independence Day: Washington is paying factories to come home
Through the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, Washington is handing out tens of billions of dollars in grants, loans and tax credits to bring factories home.
Nvidia's forecast stuns Wall Street
Nvidia told investors on 24 May to expect second-quarter revenue of $11.0 billion, 53 per cent above the consensus forecast of $7.15 billion.
Meta's new growth story: buying back its own shares
Meta Platforms reported bland fourth-quarter revenue and a lacklustre outlook, and its shares rose 23 per cent in a day, adding roughly $90 billion of market value in a few hours.
Meta's spending spree just cost it a quarter of its value
Meta Platforms' shares fell by twenty-four per cent on 27 October, wiping out eighty-five billion dollars of market value, after management said capital spending in 2023 would rise to between $34 billion and $39 billion.
