According to Forbes, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are planning to spend a staggering $370 billion on AI data center construction this year alone. Google has increased its 2025 AI spending plans from $85 billion to between $91 and $93 billion, while Meta expects to hit the high end of its $66-72 billion range with “notably larger” expenditures planned for 2026. Microsoft similarly anticipates increasing beyond its $80 billion 2025 budget. This massive capital outlay comes as these same companies face ongoing antitrust scrutiny from the DOJ and FTC, with cases originally filed between 2020 and 2024. The timing is particularly striking given that Netflix’s recent unexpected hit “KPop Demon Hunters” demonstrates how even industry insiders can’t predict what will succeed.
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When antitrust meets reality
Here’s the thing about monopolies: they don’t typically pour hundreds of billions into uncertain futures. Mark Zuckerberg himself admitted on a recent earnings call that Meta and others might be overinvesting in AI. But that’s exactly the point – they’re terrified of being left behind. Companies with comfortable monopoly positions don’t behave this way. They don’t gamble this much capital on technologies where the commercial applications remain somewhat opaque. The sheer scale of this investment tells you everything about how competitive these companies think the landscape really is.
Backward-looking cases in a forward-moving world
Think about the timing here. The DOJ introduced its case against Google in 2020. The FTC went after Meta in 2020, Amazon in 2023, and Microsoft in 2024. Meanwhile, these companies were already shifting their entire capital allocation strategy toward AI. The antitrust cases feel like they’re prosecuting yesterday’s business models while these companies are desperately trying to invent tomorrow’s. It’s like suing Blockbuster for being a video rental monopoly in 2010 when Netflix was already streaming. The legal actions are fundamentally misaligned with where the actual competitive dynamics have moved.
The innovation imperative
What’s fascinating is that this level of spending isn’t optional for these companies. As The Washington Post reports, the commercial outlook is changing so rapidly that standing still means certain obsolescence. We’re talking about infrastructure that requires years to build for markets that don’t fully exist yet. That’s not monopoly behavior – that’s the behavior of companies running scared in the most capital-intensive arms race we’ve ever seen in tech. The fact that even hardware manufacturers and industrial computing providers would be stretched thin by these demands shows how massive this shift really is.
Time for antitrust regulators to move on
So what should the Trump administration do? Basically, acknowledge that these cases are fighting the last war. The technology sector has transformed dramatically since these lawsuits were first conceived. The $370 billion these companies are spending in 2025 alone demonstrates they’re operating in anything but a comfortable, monopolistic environment. They’re making bets that could easily fail, investing in infrastructure that might become obsolete, and racing against both known competitors and startups that could emerge from nowhere. The smart move would be for regulators to save face by quietly winding down these backward-looking cases and focusing on actual, current anti-competitive behavior rather than historical market positions.
