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As the earnings season winds down, I continue to be blown away by the magnitude of some of these beats, many of which are coming from AI-adjacent names that few would have expected to be headlining the cycle. While the marquee players like Nvidia ((NVDA - Free Report) ), Alphabet ((GOOGL - Free Report) ) and Meta Platforms ((META - Free Report) ) are putting up enormous numbers and pouring billions into the buildout, I am continually surprised by results from names like Dell Technologies ((DELL - Free Report) ) and Hewlett Packard ((HPE - Free Report) ), which play comparatively smaller roles in the broader tech ecosystem but are nonetheless beneficiaries of the massive buildout.
The story of 2026 isn't simply the sheer scale of AI infrastructure spending, but how rapidly and consistently expectations continue to move higher. At the end of last year, analysts projected hyperscaler capital expenditures of roughly $600 billion for 2026, already representing an impressive 36% increase from the prior year. Following the latest earnings season, however, those estimates have been revised upward to approximately $750 billion, implying annual growth of 67%. Forecasts for 2027 are already teasing the $1 trillion level. Hyperscaler AI capex now represents approximately 2.2% of US GDP.
One earnings report I am eagerly awaiting is Oracle ((ORCL - Free Report) ). While often overshadowed by the more prominent AI names, Oracle has made one of the most aggressive bets on the AI boom. Oracle has committed roughly $50 billion to AI, more than double its prior year and representing a capex-to-revenue ratio of approximately 76%, by far the highest in the hyperscaler cohort. A few months ago, I detailed here just how far founder Larry Ellison is willing to go to capitalize on this opportunity and why I believed the stock was compelling.
Oracle reports earnings on June 10, and with expectations rising alongside demand for AI infrastructure, the company enters the report with significant momentum behind it.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Earnings Tell the AI Story
As noted, the earnings results have been truly mind-bending.
Nvidia revenue spiked 85% to $81.6 billion and Alphabet’sGoogle Cloud posted a 63% revenue increase. Meanwhile Gemini Enterprise paid monthly active users grew 40% quarter over quarter. Meta’s revenue hit $56.31 billion, up 33% year over year, the fastest quarterly growth since 2021. META also raised Capex guidance to $125–$145 billion.
Dell may have been the most jaw-dropping beat. Record revenue of $43.8 billion came in 88% above the prior year, with diluted EPS up 282%. Dell booked $24.4 billion in AI orders and recognized $16.1 billion in AI server revenue in the quarter alone. Management guided to approximately $50 billion in AI revenue for the full fiscal year.
Hewlett Packard reported Q1 revenue of $10.68 billion, up 40% year over year. The company carried an AI server backlog of $5 billion, with management noting that Cloud and AI revenue is weighted toward the second half of the fiscal year as shipment timing catches up to demand.
As Dell and HP transform into AI infrastructure companies, their stocks have nearly doubled in the last month alone.
The Incoming Anthropic IPO
Perhaps the most vivid illustration of where all this infrastructure spend is going is the Anthropic IPO filing, announced this week. Anthropic confidentially submitted draft IPO paperwork just days after closing a $65 billion Series H funding round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, eclipsing rival OpenAI's valuation for the first time. The company generated $4.8 billion in Q1 revenue and is projecting $10.9 billion for Q2, more than doubling in a single quarter, and is on pace for its first profitable quarter. Annualized revenue has reached $47 billion, up from $10 billion at the end of 2025.
IPO, targeting an October 2026 listing on Nasdaq, would rank among the largest technology debuts in Wall Street history and is expected to join SpaceX and OpenAI as one of three potential trillion-dollar listings this year.
Can AI Stocks Continue to Climb?
The Anthropic filing matters for investors in the AI infrastructure trade because it validates the demand side of the capex equation. Every dollar Dell ships in AI servers, every watt of data center capacity Oracle builds, every Nvidia GPU installed ultimately runs models like Claude. When Anthropic's revenue doubles in a single quarter at a nearly trillion-dollar valuation, it confirms that the demand absorbing all this infrastructure is real, scaling, and increasingly monetizable.
The AI boom isn't slowing down and appears to actually be accelerating. This is clearly demonstrated by the estimates that keep moving higher and the earnings that keep backing them up.
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Image: Bigstock
The AI Boom is Even Bigger than We Thought
As the earnings season winds down, I continue to be blown away by the magnitude of some of these beats, many of which are coming from AI-adjacent names that few would have expected to be headlining the cycle. While the marquee players like Nvidia ((NVDA - Free Report) ), Alphabet ((GOOGL - Free Report) ) and Meta Platforms ((META - Free Report) ) are putting up enormous numbers and pouring billions into the buildout, I am continually surprised by results from names like Dell Technologies ((DELL - Free Report) ) and Hewlett Packard ((HPE - Free Report) ), which play comparatively smaller roles in the broader tech ecosystem but are nonetheless beneficiaries of the massive buildout.
The story of 2026 isn't simply the sheer scale of AI infrastructure spending, but how rapidly and consistently expectations continue to move higher. At the end of last year, analysts projected hyperscaler capital expenditures of roughly $600 billion for 2026, already representing an impressive 36% increase from the prior year. Following the latest earnings season, however, those estimates have been revised upward to approximately $750 billion, implying annual growth of 67%. Forecasts for 2027 are already teasing the $1 trillion level. Hyperscaler AI capex now represents approximately 2.2% of US GDP.
One earnings report I am eagerly awaiting is Oracle ((ORCL - Free Report) ). While often overshadowed by the more prominent AI names, Oracle has made one of the most aggressive bets on the AI boom. Oracle has committed roughly $50 billion to AI, more than double its prior year and representing a capex-to-revenue ratio of approximately 76%, by far the highest in the hyperscaler cohort. A few months ago, I detailed here just how far founder Larry Ellison is willing to go to capitalize on this opportunity and why I believed the stock was compelling.
Oracle reports earnings on June 10, and with expectations rising alongside demand for AI infrastructure, the company enters the report with significant momentum behind it.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Earnings Tell the AI Story
As noted, the earnings results have been truly mind-bending.
Nvidia revenue spiked 85% to $81.6 billion and Alphabet’sGoogle Cloud posted a 63% revenue increase. Meanwhile Gemini Enterprise paid monthly active users grew 40% quarter over quarter. Meta’s revenue hit $56.31 billion, up 33% year over year, the fastest quarterly growth since 2021. META also raised Capex guidance to $125–$145 billion.
Dell may have been the most jaw-dropping beat. Record revenue of $43.8 billion came in 88% above the prior year, with diluted EPS up 282%. Dell booked $24.4 billion in AI orders and recognized $16.1 billion in AI server revenue in the quarter alone. Management guided to approximately $50 billion in AI revenue for the full fiscal year.
Hewlett Packard reported Q1 revenue of $10.68 billion, up 40% year over year. The company carried an AI server backlog of $5 billion, with management noting that Cloud and AI revenue is weighted toward the second half of the fiscal year as shipment timing catches up to demand.
As Dell and HP transform into AI infrastructure companies, their stocks have nearly doubled in the last month alone.
The Incoming Anthropic IPO
Perhaps the most vivid illustration of where all this infrastructure spend is going is the Anthropic IPO filing, announced this week. Anthropic confidentially submitted draft IPO paperwork just days after closing a $65 billion Series H funding round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, eclipsing rival OpenAI's valuation for the first time. The company generated $4.8 billion in Q1 revenue and is projecting $10.9 billion for Q2, more than doubling in a single quarter, and is on pace for its first profitable quarter. Annualized revenue has reached $47 billion, up from $10 billion at the end of 2025.
IPO, targeting an October 2026 listing on Nasdaq, would rank among the largest technology debuts in Wall Street history and is expected to join SpaceX and OpenAI as one of three potential trillion-dollar listings this year.
Can AI Stocks Continue to Climb?
The Anthropic filing matters for investors in the AI infrastructure trade because it validates the demand side of the capex equation. Every dollar Dell ships in AI servers, every watt of data center capacity Oracle builds, every Nvidia GPU installed ultimately runs models like Claude. When Anthropic's revenue doubles in a single quarter at a nearly trillion-dollar valuation, it confirms that the demand absorbing all this infrastructure is real, scaling, and increasingly monetizable.
The AI boom isn't slowing down and appears to actually be accelerating. This is clearly demonstrated by the estimates that keep moving higher and the earnings that keep backing them up.