Investing.com -- Shares of AI giant NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) gained 4.6% before the opening bell Thursday after hyperscaler Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) increased its capex budget for this year again, citing AI spending. In addition, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) said it is continuing to expand its data center capacity, despite recent rumors of a slowdown.
Meta said it now anticipates full year 2025 capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, will be in the range of $64-72 billion, increased from its prior outlook of $60-65 billion. This bring the mid-point of 2025 capex to $68 billion versus $62.5 billion.
"This updated outlook reflects additional data center investments to support our artificial intelligence efforts as well as an increase in the expected cost of infrastructure hardware," Meta said. "The majority of our capital expenditures in 2025 will continue to be directed to our core business."
Meanwhile, Microsoft said it is continuing to expand its data center capacity, despite rumors to the contrary. "And in our AI services, while we continue to bring data center capacity online as planned, demand is growing a bit faster," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated. CFO Amy Hood added, "Satya talks about being short power, he’s really talking about data center space."
The news from Meta and Microsoft comes amid worries about possible AI capex slowdowns, on concerns that hyperscalers will try to be more efficient with spending, using more DeepSeek-like technology.