{"id":67869,"date":"2026-01-28T20:57:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/887418677"},"modified":"2026-01-28T20:57:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:57:03","slug":"from-meta-to-samsung-global-tech-unleashes-spending-to-chase-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/from-meta-to-samsung-global-tech-unleashes-spending-to-chase-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"From Meta to Samsung, Global Tech Unleashes Spending to Chase AI"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Bloomberg) —<\/span> The world\u2019s largest tech firms show no signs of easing up on AI spending, a record wave that\u2019s propelling hardware providers like Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. That\u2019s even as doubts persist about the staying power of artificial intelligence demand to justify all that capital.<\/p>\n

Meta Platforms Inc. alone revealed ambitions to spend as much as $135 billion this year \u2014 one of the biggest planned outlays of the business sphere. Its suppliers have responded in kind: On Thursday, SK Hynix said it plans a \u201cconsiderable increase\u201d in capex, and Samsung said it\u2019s ratcheting up spending on its memory production capacity.<\/p>\n

Most Read from Bloomberg<\/p>\n

That\u2019s as investors continue to reward ambition \u2014 so long as companies can show growth. Microsoft Corp. shares slid 6.1% after revealing a slowdown in cloud services growth, while Meta climbed 6.6%.<\/p>\n

A procession of industry linchpins reported results this week that underscored how voracious the appetite for AI hardware has grown \u2014 and how that\u2019s likely to extend well into 2026.<\/p>\n

Meta, Microsoft and fellow hyperscalers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc., are driving a wave of global spending on chips, servers and computers that\u2019s firing up hardware suppliers around the world, particularly in Asia.<\/p>\n

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Samsung and SK Hynix \u2014 two makers of the memory chips that go into Nvidia Corp.\u2019s essential AI accelerators as well as data center servers \u2014 reported profits that grew several-fold. ASML Holding NV, the only provider of the cutting-edge lithography machines needed for advanced semiconductors \u2014 also smashed estimates.<\/p>\n

The \u201creal headline is the relentless ramp\u201d in capital expenditures, said Matt Britzman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be surprising to see the share reaction cool as investors absorb those aggressive investment plans,\u201d he said, referring to Meta.<\/p>\n

At the same time, that enormous demand is worsening a global chip demand-supply imbalance that threatens to disrupt industries from smartphones and electronics to car-making.<\/p>\n

While the appetite for Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. accelerators needed to develop and operate AI has long outstripped supply, investors are growing increasingly concerned about a similar deficit in more basic memory.<\/p>\n

The availability of semiconductors will be a big bottleneck to growth for companies including Tesla Inc., and may necessitate building a Tesla TeraFab \u2014 a factory that can make logic and memory chips and provide packaging, Elon Musk said in a recent podcast with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re going to hit a chip wall if we don\u2019t do the fab,\u201d Musk said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two choices: hit the chip wall or make a fab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Memory manufacturers are reallocating production lines toward lucrative HBM to satisfy the needs of AI data centers. Because HBM requires about three times the wafer capacity of standard DRAM for the same amount of memory, this shift has reduced supply for the consumer electronics industry. That\u2019s threatening double-digit price hikes for PC makers and smaller electronics companies.<\/p>\n

Concerns about end-demand for AI persist, however. Microsoft\u2019s capex grew a larger-than-anticipated 66% in the quarter, but its Azure cloud-computing unit posted a 38% revenue gain \u2014 one percentage point slower than the prior three months.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg talked about \u201ca major AI acceleration\u201d that\u2019s been brewing within the tech industry for over a year. \u201cI expect our first models will be good, but more importantly, we\u2019ll show the rapid trajectory that we\u2019re on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s shares were down around 0.4% during trading in Seoul on Thursday, even though it said it plans to start shipments of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory, HBM4, in February \u2014 a key step in its bid to catch up with SK Hynix in the lucrative segment. SK Hynix\u2019s stock rose around 2%.<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s chip unit reported a five-fold gain in profit, well above the average of analyst estimates. It also said it would buy back 3.57 trillion won of its shares, and announced a special dividend payout that raises its fourth-quarter payout to 3.75 trillion won.<\/p>\n

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In Asia, attention is on the race for leadership in next-generation HBM4, which is set to be integrated with Nvidia\u2019s upcoming flagship Rubin processors. Samsung is close to obtaining certification from Nvidia for the latest version of its AI memory chip.<\/p>\n

The AI building rush is also helping to bolster Samsung\u2019s foundry business, which competes with industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Samsung\u2019s contract chipmaking arm expects 2-nanometer orders to rise about 130% in 2026, with the company in active discussions with customers in the US and China, executives said.<\/p>\n

–With assistance from Sohee Kim, Debby Wu, Vlad Savov and Denny Thomas.<\/p>\n

(Updates with market reaction, analyst commentary and earnings results from US tech companies.)<\/p>\n

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… ) — The world\u00e2\u0080\u0099s largest tech<\/span> firms show no signs of … \u00e2\u0080\u0099s been brewing within the tech<\/span> industry for over a year … and earnings results from US tech<\/span> companies.) Most Read from Bloomberg …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}