$1.4trl of Capex, 4X in Compute Capacity, and Al Revenue Streams to Watch into ‘28

Research evidence excerpt

$1.4trl of Capex, 4X in Compute Capacity, and Al Revenue Streams to Watch into ‘28

Foundation

July 12, 2026 10:02 PM GMT

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLCMInternet | North America Brian Nowak, CFA

Equity Analyst

$1.4trln of Capex, 4X in Brian.Nowak@morganstanley.comJulian Herrera +1 212 761-3365

Research Associate

Julian.Herrera@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-1784

Compute Capacity, and AI Gregory Gao

Greg.Gao@morganstanley.com +1 212 296-3125

Revenue Streams to Watch into Nikhil Javeri

Nikhil.Javeri1@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-3742

'28 Kavya A Narayanan

Kavya.Narayanan@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-4183

Updated bottom up cost per GW and rising forward capacity

Internet

expectations cause us to raise hyperscaler capex to $1.4t in '28 North America

painting a path to 120 GW (from 30 in '25). META top pick with 5 Industry View Attractive

under-appreciated call options, and AMZN and GOOGL

hyperscale revs set to accelerate with strong profitability

The Ecosystem Remains Compute-Constrained And Urgency to Spend Remains

High…We have written extensively about the rising value, strategic importance and

monetization optionality associated with access to compute (see here and here). In

effect, limitations on chips/racks, powered shells (see our thematic teams' work

here, led by Stephen Byrd) and other bottlenecks are stretching timelines from

breaking ground to opening data centers to as much as 3 years. Furthermore, we

also believe growing social backlash to data center development and political

uncertainty into the '28 presidential election are causing hyperscalers to start

building sooner to emphasize job creation. This adds even further to inflationary

pressures. As such, we expect capex spend to continue to head higher (now