New data-center build surged 81 percent last year, and the backlogs are running up to roughly nine years. Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft will spend over $200 billion this year on capex. That exceeds the peaks in oil (2013) and telecom (2000). Between 2024 and 2027, their cumulative spending will likely hit $850 billion, which brings things into the realm of the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program, but this time it’s all privately funded. Tech leaders are embracing the spending spree. “The risk of underinvesting is dramatically greater than the risk of overinvesting,” said Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, as the company put $50 billion towards capex last year, an 84 percent increase over its five-year average.