内容来源：https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-google-meta-2025-earnings/

内容总结：

本周三，微软、Meta和谷歌三大美国科技巨头在季度财报中向投资者传递了明确信号：其对人工智能基础设施的巨额投入才刚刚拉开序幕。

Meta率先宣布将今年资本支出预期从660-720亿美元上调至700-720亿美元。首席财务官苏珊·李更预告明年投入将"显著扩大"。这家社交媒体巨头的投资增幅与营收增长形成呼应：上季度营收同比激增26%至512.4亿美元。首席执行官马克·扎克伯格强调，公司将持续加码AI基建，既为应对当前需求，也为技术突破预作准备。为强化AI团队效能，Meta近期裁员约600人，并在八个月内完成多次组织架构调整。

谷歌母公司Alphabet同样大幅上调2025年资本支出指引至910-930亿美元，较年初预估的750亿美元激增超20%。其云业务季度营收达151.5亿美元，同比增长35%，AI应用Gemini月活用户较上季度增长2亿至6.5亿。微软本季度资本支出达349亿美元，同比猛增74%，其中大部分流向AI基础设施。首席财务官艾米·胡德透露，2026财年资本支出增速将超越本财年。

行业观察人士指出，科技巨头正以"分段建设、资源灵活调配"的策略应对市场不确定性。微软首席执行官萨提亚·纳德拉透露，公司通过设备通用化设计和持续技术迭代提升基建灵活性。伯恩斯坦资深分析师马克·莫德勒认为，这种渐进式投入模式为企业提供了风险缓冲。

然而巨额投入背后隐忧浮现。英伟达宣布可能向OpenAI投入千亿美元，后者则规划建设价值1.4万亿美元的算力设施。微软因投资OpenAI导致本季度净收益受损31亿美元，坦言这项合作将加剧业绩波动。尽管科技高管们强调AI已为广告、云业务带来实质收益，但面对动辄千亿美元的长期投入计划，市场对AI泡沫的质疑声正在蔓延。

中文翻译：

美国三大科技巨头——微软、Meta和谷歌——在周三发布季度财报时向投资者传递了一个明确信息：它们在人工智能基础设施上的巨额投入才刚刚开始。

Meta宣布今年资本支出总额将达700亿至720亿美元，较此前预测的660亿至720亿美元下限有所提升。Meta首席财务官李苏珊表示，预计明年公司支出将"显著增加"。这家社交媒体巨头激增的投资与飙升的营收相匹配：Meta上季度营收达512.4亿美元，同比增长26%。

首席执行官马克·扎克伯格表示，公司将继续投入资金建设基础设施，以满足日益增长的人工智能需求，并为该技术可能出现的重大突破做好准备。"关于实现超级智能的时间表，业界存在不同预测，"扎克伯格在分析师电话会议上说，"我们认为积极超前建设算力是正确策略，这样才能为最乐观的发展前景做好准备。"

近几个月来Meta一直积极招揽人工智能人才，为部分研究人员提供了价值数亿美元的薪酬方案。该公司上周还裁减了约600个岗位，称此举旨在提升AI团队效率。过去八个月间，Meta已对AI团队进行了多次重组。

Meta向投资者保证，其AI投资已开始产生回报，但未透露具体细节。公司明确表示AI技术正助力其广告业务和虚拟现实产品线，并预测未来将推动这些业务达到新高度。

谷歌母公司Alphabet表示，预计2025年资本支出将在910亿至930亿美元之间。今年早些时候，该公司预估该数字仅为750亿美元。与Meta类似，支出增长伴随着收入增长。这家科技巨头第三季度营收达1023亿美元创历史新高，同比增长33%。

Alphabet的大部分支出将投入数据中心和其他人工智能项目。谷歌第三季度云业务收入达151.5亿美元，较2024年同期增长35%。其通用AI应用Gemini月活跃用户数已达6.5亿，较上季度的4.5亿大幅增长。（作为对比，OpenAI首席执行官萨姆·奥尔特曼近日透露ChatGPT周活跃用户达8亿。）

微软报告截至9月30日的季度营收达770亿美元，同比增长18%。其云业务收入同比增长26%。本季度资本支出为349亿美元，其中大部分投向AI基础设施，较此前预测高出近50亿美元，同比激增74%。

虽然微软未对下季度或明年AI资本支出给出具体预测，但首席财务官艾米·胡德表示，公司总支出将"逐季增长，预计2026财年增长率将高于2025财年"。

科技公司制定这些雄心勃勃的资本支出计划，是基于AI需求将持续增长的预判。但部分分析师担忧AI市场存在泡沫并最终破裂。

这些忧虑源于各方宣布的耗资巨大、周期漫长的数据中心项目和分期投资计划。英伟达上月表示将向OpenAI投资"高达1000亿美元"，前提是这家ChatGPT制造商需使用英伟达芯片建设至少10吉瓦的AI数据中心。而OpenAI昨日刚宣布计划开发价值1.4万亿美元的30吉瓦计算资源。

微软已承诺向OpenAI累计投资130亿美元，并持续采用其前沿AI模型，但本季度因该项投资亏损导致净收入减少31亿美元。微软表示与OpenAI的持续合作将带来更大业绩波动。胡德称今后公司在财务展望中将排除OpenAI投资的影响。

微软首席执行官萨特亚·纳德拉向分析师指出，理解公司资本支出策略需关注两个"关键"要点：一是正致力于使数据中心集群具备"可替代性"，即能灵活调整以适应未来多变的客户需求；二是将持续推进基础设施现代化。

"我们并非一次性采购英伟达设备来满足所有算力需求。每年我们都会遵循摩尔定律进行采购，持续更新设备并计提折旧，同时通过软件提升效率。"纳德拉解释道。

伯恩斯坦资深全球软件分析师马克·莫德勒认为，微软"分阶段建设算力并能灵活调配资源，这为其提供了有效防护"。但他补充道："整体AI市场是否存在泡沫？这种可能性确实存在，而他们并未解答这个问题。"

英文来源：

Three of the biggest US tech giants—Microsoft, Meta, and Google—sent investors a blunt message when they reported quarterly earnings on Wednesday: Their lavish spending on AI infrastructure is only just getting started.
Meta said that its capital expenditure would total between $70 billion and $72 billion this year, up from its previous lower forecast of $66 billion to $72 billion. Meta’s chief financial officer Susan Li said that she expected the company's spending would be “notably larger" next year. The social media giant’s soaring investment matches its soaring revenue: Meta reported raking in $51.24 billion last quarter, up 26 percent year-over-year.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would keep pouring money into infrastructure to meet rising demand for AI and to prepare for potential major breakthroughs in the technology. "There's a range of timelines for when people think that we're going to get superintelligence," Zuckerberg said on a conference call with analysts. "I think that it's the right strategy to aggressively front-load building capacity, so that way we're prepared for the most optimistic cases."
Meta has moved aggressively to recruit AI talent in recent months, offering some researchers compensation packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The company also cut some 600 jobs last week in what it said was an effort to make its AI teams more efficient. Meta has reorganized its AI teams numerous times over the past eight months.
Meta assured investors that its AI investments were already reaping rewards for the company, but didn’t share many specifics. Meta did say AI was benefiting its ad business and virtual reality product lines, and predicted it would propel those divisions to new heights in the future.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said it expected its 2025 capital expenditures to be between $91 billion and $93 billion. Earlier this year, Alphabet estimated that number would be just $75 billion. Like at Meta, the increase in spending was matched with an increase in revenue. The tech giant said it earned a record $102.3 billion in the third quarter, up 33 percent from a year ago.
Most of Alphabet’s spending will likely be funneled into data centers and other artificial intelligence initiatives. Google said it earned $15.15 billion from its cloud business in the third quarter, a 35 percent increase from the same period in 2024. Gemini, Google’s general purpose AI app, now has 650 million monthly active users, up from 450 million last quarter. (For comparison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said that ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users.)
Microsoft reported revenues of $77 billion for the quarter ending on September 30, up 18 percent from a year ago. Its cloud business revenue was up 26 percent year-over-year. Its capital expenditures were $34.9 billion this quarter, with much of the investment going toward AI infrastructure. That figure is nearly $5 billion more than previously forecasted, and a 74 percent jump from the same quarter a year ago.
While Microsoft didn’t offer a specific forecast for its AI capital expenditures for the next quarter or coming year, the company’s chief financial officer, Amy Hood, said that the company’s total spend will “increase sequentially, and we now expect the fiscal year 2026 growth rate to be higher than fiscal year 2025.”
Tech companies are making these ambitious plans for more capital spending under the assumption that demand for AI will only continue to grow. But some analysts are raising concerns that the AI market is a bubble and will eventually burst.
Those worries are being fueled by announcements about enormously expensive, multi-year data center projects and staggered investments. Last month, Nvidia said it would invest “up to $100 billion” in OpenAI, provided that the ChatGPT maker builds and deploys at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers using Nvidia’s chips. OpenAI, meanwhile, said just yesterday that it was planning to develop 30 gigawatts of computing resources worth $1.4 trillion.
Microsoft has committed to putting a total of $13 billion in OpenAI, and it continues to use the company’s frontier AI models, but took a $3.1 billion hit in net income this quarter due to losses from that investment. Microsoft said that the ongoing nature of its partnership with OpenAI will result in increased volatility. Going forward, Hood said, the company will exclude any impacts from its OpenAI investment in its financial outlooks.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts there are two “critical” things to consider about how the company views its capital expenditures. The first is that it is finding ways to make its fleet of data centers “fungible,” or interchangeable, meaning they can be easily modified to meet changing customer demands in the future. The second is that the company is expecting to continually modernize its infrastructure.
“It’s not like we buy one version of Nvidia and load up for all the gigawatts we have. Each year, you buy, you ride Moore’s law, you continually modernize and depreciate it, and you use software to grow efficiency,” Nadella said.
Mark Moerdler, a senior research analyst covering global software at Bernstein, says that Microsoft is “building capacity in tranches over time and can shift resources, which gives them a lot of protection.” But, he added, “Is there an overall AI bubble? It’s possible, and that they did not answer.”