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Fortune

Technology

Alyson Shontell

Alphabet’s chief investment officer responds to Jefferies warning that the most likely outcome of the AI boom is massive U.S. capital destruction

Alphabet Ruth Porat Artificial Intelligence Jefferies United States Fortune Chris Wood Anthropic China Morgan Stanley

(Credit: Rebecca Greenfield for Fortune)

This essay appears in the Oct. 17, 2026 edition of the Fortune 500 Digest newsletter, which rounds up the headlines driving the week’s most important business news and coverage of Fortune 500 companies. Subscribe to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The AI buildout is in full swing, and it’s incredibly expensive.

Between Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta, over $720 billion of capital expenditures is projected to be spent this year, most of it on AI infrastructure, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Alphabet President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat confirmed to me this week at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit that Alphabet intends to spend “significantly more” in 2027.

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