The four largest U.S. cloud companies finished their third-quarter reports last week with their spending plans intact: Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta Platforms together expect $725 billion to $745 billion of capital expenditure in calendar 2026, according to company guidance, most of it for AI data centers, chips and servers.

For Asia, that sum is an order book. A large share of it ends up with memory makers in South Korea, foundries and server assemblers in Taiwan, and component suppliers across the region, and none of the four companies signaled a slowdown. Alphabet went further and told investors to expect a significant increase in 2027.

What Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta plan to spend

Amazon said on Oct. 29 that it still expects about $220 billion of cash capital expenditure this year. Its free cash flow for the 12 months to September was an outflow of $42.4 billion, which the company attributed mainly to a $94.8 billion jump in purchases of property and equipment, largely for AI. Chief Executive Andy Jassy said Amazon projects AWS revenue growth of more than 40% in both 2027 and 2028.

Alphabet spent $51.4 billion on property and equipment in the quarter, up from $24.0 billion a year earlier, and its quarterly free cash flow was negative $9.1 billion. Its most recent full-year guidance, raised in July, is $195 billion to $205 billion; Fortune put this year's spending at about $200 billion. At the time, Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi said roughly 60% of technical infrastructure spending went on servers, W.Media reported. After the third quarter she said more detail on capex would come in the fourth quarter; analysts project about $300 billion for 2027, according to Fortune.

Microsoft's capital spending in its September quarter rose to $45.2 billion from $34.9 billion, below the company's own $50 billion projection, Reuters reported. The company has spent $118.1 billion so far in calendar 2026 and would need $56.9 billion in the final quarter to reach the $175 billion forecast it gave in July. Jonathan Neilson, vice president of investor relations, blamed delayed third-party capacity deliveries, not a change of plan. Microsoft still produced $18.6 billion of free cash flow.

Meta, which reported on Oct. 21, spent $34.9 billion including finance lease payments and narrowed its 2026 range to $135 billion to $145 billion from $130 billion to $145 billion. Free cash flow was negative $2.1 billion. The company said it is still drawing up its 2027 budget but expects to keep "investing aggressively" in AI. Reuters reported that Meta plans to issue new stock to help fund the outlays.

Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta together spent about $131.5 billion in the quarter.

Where the money lands in Asia

The clearest evidence is in South Korean trade data. Chip exports in the first 20 days of October rose 222.5% from a year earlier to $27.5 billion, a record for the period, according to Korea Customs Service figures reported by Yonhap. Semiconductors made up 44.7% of all Korean shipments, up 16.2 percentage points. Exports to the U.S. rose 154.9% to $10.7 billion.

Memory is also where the spending is getting more expensive. Amazon listed supply volatility "including for memory chips" among the risks to its outlook. Demand for memory from AI data centers has fed record profits at suppliers such as SK Hynix.

Custom silicon is a second channel. Alphabet said sales of its TPU systems made a meaningful contribution to growth at Google Cloud, whose revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion.

The financing question for suppliers

The risk for Asian suppliers is less about demand than about how long the buyers can fund it. Three of the four reported negative free cash flow on a quarterly or trailing basis, and Alphabet and Meta are leaning more on capital markets. Microsoft is the exception, and Reuters described a widening divide among the biggest AI spenders.

Investors have reacted unevenly. Alphabet shares fell about 8% in extended trading after its results, while Microsoft rose more than 3%, Reuters reported (Fortune put Alphabet's after-hours drop at more than 11%), a split we covered in our report on Alphabet's cash burn and Microsoft's Azure growth.

So far the spending has not slowed. Microsoft's own forecast implies $56.9 billion of spending in October to December, and Alphabet's 2027 plan, which Ashkenazi said would be detailed in the fourth quarter, is the next number Asian chip and server makers will be watching.