Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta’s capital investment spree tops $1tn Big four hyper scalers have been expanding their outlay since 2023 with no end in sight Financial Times Europe1 Aug 2026RYAN MCMORROW, RAFE ROSNER-UDDIN AND HANNAH MURPHY The four big hyper scalers have ploughed more than $1tn into cap ital invest mentssince their race to dom in ate AI began three and a half years ago, as Amer ica’slargest tech groups bet their future on the tech no logy. Com bined cap ital spend ing by Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta from the begin -ning of the AI boom in 2023 to the end of June hit $1.1tn, accord ing to earn ingsreports from the four com pan ies in the past two weeks. The massive expendit ure is a mark of both the scale of their AI ambi tions and thespeed with which the US tech giants have turned from cap ital-light busi nesses intohuge investors in phys ical infra struc ture. “There is basic ally no end in sight for the growth in capex,” said Rishi Jaluria, anRBC Cap ital ana...
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A pilgrimage in Lhasa, Tibet, March 2025 - Go Nakamura / Reuters The Next Phase of China’s Minority Crackdown Forced Assimilation Is Now the Law James Leibold and Tenzin Dorjee | July 30, 2026 When the People’s Republic of China was founded, in 1949, it was explicitly a multinational state. Although Han Chinese make up more than 90 percent of the country’s population, China’s constitution and subsequent laws grant minority nationalities autonomy in specific regions and promise them collective agency as “masters of their own homes.” For decades, the party-state’s official bargain—honored unevenly and often violated—was that national unity would be best secured by recognizing difference and granting minorities limited territorial, linguistic, and political autonomy within China, rather than by forcing them to be absorbed into Han culture. As of July 1, however, national integration through forced cultural assimilation is the law of the land. The constitution still defines the cou...
Investors appear to be growing weary of obvious nonsense Financial Times UK 1 Aug 2026 Katie Mar tin katie.mar tin@ft.com Given the explo sion in excite ment about ancient Greek legends and myths, it is fit ting that this week sev eral key prot ag on ists in fin an cial mar kets have, Icarus-style, flown too close to the sun. Dazzled by ambi tion and hubris, and con vinced of their invin cib il ity, people as diverse as South Korean day traders and the world’s most power ful cent ral banker have been singed from the fierce heat of real ity. None of this is a sur prise, as such. Some of these reck on ings were heav ily advert ised in advance. (If you have a work ing know ledge of mar kets and did not real ise Korean stocks were over heat ing, then I have bad news for you about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.) But to me, it is an indic a tion that investors are finally show ing signs of grow ing weary of the pain fully obvi ous non sense. The mas ters of hype are...
US regulators warn on KKR and Apollo ‘circular’ risk Financial Times UK 1 Aug 2026 LEE HARRIS IN LONDON AND ERIC PLATT US reg u lat ors are sound ing an alarm over risks of “cir cu lar own er ship” and opaque hold ings in fast-grow ing fin an cial struc tures used by private cap ital groups includ ing Apollo and KKR. The warn ing, set out in new doc u ments from the stand ard-set ting body for US state insur ance reg u lat ors, cuts to a grow ing con cern that the invest ments filling insur ance bal ance sheets could har bour greater risks than poli cy hold ers or investors per ceive, as the industry invests vast pro ceeds from premi ums in private mar kets. Greater dis clos ure or cap ital require ments could blunt so-called multi-asset secur it isa tions, invest ments that often slice and dice stakes in a hand ful of funds. They can own any thing from credit card debt and mort gages to private equity fund stakes and dir ect loans to middle-mar ket com pan ies....
We’ve moved from income world to wealth world Financial Times UK 1 Aug 2026 John Burn-Mur doch john.burn-mur doch@ft.com Con cerns about wealth inequal ity have grown in recent years, with calls for wealth taxes now recur rent fea tures of polit ical dis course on both sides of the Atlantic. It is often poin ted out in response that most meas ures of wealth inequal ity show little to no change over the same period. Taken at face value, this argu ment is reas on able. The share of wealth held by the top 10 per cent in the US, UK and Europe has been flat or fall ing for the past 15 years. Even if we zoom in on the top 1 per cent, their share of wealth is no higher today than it was 15 years ago (although it had been climb ing before this period in some places). But I’m not sure this answer addresses what lies behind the under ly ing con cern. Stand ard meas ures of wealth inequal ity tell us how evenly wealth is dis trib uted in rel at ive terms. This is an import ...
SACK THE TOXIC INFANTICIDE! Infantino under huge pressure after plan for World Cup sell-off sparks resignation and rebuke Fifa president Gianni Infantino has seen two key members of his inner circle distance themselves from him. Photograph: Claudio Thoma/EPA Cordeiro quits as senior adviser to Fifa president Lamour: sell-off plan ‘defies belief and imagination’ The walls started closing in on Gianni Infantino after another dramatic day that saw one of his senior advisers resign and brought a scathing rebuke from Fifa’s own chief operating officer. Infantino is under huge pressure after his plan to sell chunks of the World Cup to private investors met a tide of opposition from around the globe. European countries have already promised to boycott Fifa competitions if he does not shelve the scheme but Friday’s developments, which led to two key members of his inner circle distancing themselves from him, may prove equally damaging to any prospects ...
Skip to content Log In Articles Share Expert Take China The Latest in U.S.-China AI Competition CFR President Michael Froman and CFR Senior Fellow Chris McGuire discuss recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI), including Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 model, and how the United States could maintain its technological advantage. People walk past the Moonshot booth promoting its Kimi K3 AI model, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China, July 17, 2026. Go Nakamura/Reuters By experts and staff Published July 31, 2026 2:58 p.m. Michael Froman CFR Expert President, Council on Foreign Relations The World This Week is taking a brief hiatus until after Labor Day. Until then, enjoy my deep dive interview with Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Chris McGuire on the latest developments in the U.S.-China competition to lead in artificial intelligence (AI). MICHAEL FROMAN: Chris, there’s a new model in town. On July 16, th...