It's never a great sign when what's going out the door gets more attention than what's coming in.
The world's largest tech companies should at least be getting used to that by now. More than a year into the so-called AI revolution, the most eye-popping changes have come to their cash-flow statements. Microsoft MSFT -0.10%decrease; red down pointing triangle, Amazon.com AMZN 0.08%increase; green up pointing triangle, Google parent Alphabet GOOGL 0.30%increase; green up pointing triangle and Meta Platforms META -0.70%decrease; red down pointing triangle, which owns Facebook and Instagram, parted with a combined $106.2 billion in capital spending during the first half of this year. That is up 49% from the same period a year earlier, with most of the increase going for chips from Nvidia NVDA -4.69%decrease; red down pointing triangle and other infrastructure to power generative artificial intelligence services.