Technology Capex Race: How Tesla, Meta, and Nebius Are Reshaping AI Investment

The battle for dominance in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and robotics is now playing out on the capital expenditure battlefield. Major technology companies are unleashing unprecedented capex budgets, signaling a fundamental shift in how they compete. Tesla, Meta, and Nebius exemplify this trend, each pouring billions into infrastructure, compute capacity, and next-generation technology platforms. For investors and industry observers, understanding this capex wave is critical to grasping where these companies are headed.

Tesla’s Ambitious $20B Capital Spending Pivot

Elon Musk has spent years repositioning Tesla as more than an automotive manufacturer. The electric vehicle pioneer, once facing pressure from Chinese competitors and slower-than-expected adoption rates, is now betting heavily on AI, robotics, and autonomous capabilities. This strategic shift is reflected in Tesla’s capex trajectory.

The company plans to exceed $20 billion in capital spending during 2026—a dramatic acceleration from approximately $8.5 billion last year and well above the previous peak of $11.3 billion recorded in 2024. This spending surge will fund six major infrastructure projects: a refinery facility, lithium iron phosphate battery production, the CyberCab vehicle platform, the Semi truck line, a new megafactory, and Optimus robot manufacturing operations.

Beyond physical plants, Tesla’s capex allocation prioritizes AI compute infrastructure—the backbone of full self-driving capabilities, robotaxi fleets, and humanoid robotics scaling. The company is also expanding production capacity at existing facilities while building the operational systems required to run them at efficiency. With nearly $44 billion in cash reserves, Tesla possesses the financial firepower to execute this ambitious blueprint. The message is unmistakable: Tesla is transitioning into a technology and AI-driven enterprise.

Meta and Nebius Join the Capital Spending Surge

Tesla is not alone in this capex intensification. The broader technology sector is experiencing a capital spending arms race centered on AI infrastructure.

Meta Platforms is sharply escalating its capital investment commitments. The social media and AI company plans to deploy $115 to $135 billion in capex during 2026, a substantial jump from $72.2 billion in 2025 and more than triple its 2024 spending levels. Meta’s investment targets are explicitly focused: expanding AI infrastructure, constructing advanced data center facilities, acquiring high-performance compute resources, and supporting its newly established Meta Superintelligence Labs division.

Nebius, an emerging player in AI infrastructure services, is equally aggressive. The company recently announced a $5 billion capex plan for 2025, a significant revision upward from its previous $2 billion guidance. Nebius is using this capital allocation to secure critical assets—power infrastructure, real estate, data center sites, and GPU hardware—enabling rapid deployment of large-scale AI computing capacity. This capital spending strategy positions Nebius to capitalize on the explosive demand for data center resources.

What This Capex Wave Means for the Industry

The convergence of these capex surges reveals a fundamental truth: technology leaders are investing for long-term dominance in AI and autonomous systems. Capital expenditure has become the primary battleground.

This is not speculative spending. Each dollar deployed reflects confidence in the commercial viability of AI-driven products—whether Tesla’s autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, Meta’s AI-powered applications, or Nebius’s infrastructure services. The capex commitments signal that major corporations view this moment as a critical inflection point for their businesses and competitive positioning.

For the broader market, this capex trend has implications. Hardware providers, data center operators, and semiconductor manufacturers stand to benefit significantly from this infrastructure buildout. Companies positioned to supply the tools, compute capacity, and materials underlying this technological transformation are well-positioned for the next phase of growth.