It takes a lot of computing power to run an AI product — and as the tech industry races to tap the power of AI models, there’s a parallel race underway to build the infrastructure that will power them. On a recent earnings call, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang estimated that between $3 trillion and $4 trillion will be spent on AI infrastructure by the end of the decade — with much of that money coming from AI companies. Along the way, they’re placing immense strain on power grids and pushing the industry’s building capacity to its limit. Below, we’ve laid out everything we know about the biggest AI infrastructure projects, including major spending from Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI. We’ll keep it updated as the boom continues and the numbers climb even higher. Microsoft’s 2019 investment in OpenAI This is arguably the deal that kicked off the whole contemporary AI boom: In 2019, Microsoft made a <head> billion investment in a buzzy non-profit called OpenAI, known mostly for its association with Elon Musk. Crucially, the deal made Microsoft the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI — and as the demands of model training became more intense, more of Microsoft’s investment started to come in the form of Azure cloud credit rather than cash. It was a great deal for both sides: Microsoft was able to claim more Azure sales, and OpenAI got more money for its biggest single expense. In the years that followed, Microsoft would build its investment up to nearly <head>4 billion — a move that is set to pay off enormously when OpenAI converts into a for-profit company. The partnership between the two companies has unwound more recently. Last year, OpenAI announced it would no longer be using Microsoft’s cloud exclusively, instead giving the company a right of first refusal on future infrastructure demands but pursuing others if Azure couldn’t meet their needs. Microsoft has also begun exploring other foundation models to power its AI products, establishing even more independence from the AI giant. OpenAI’s arrangement with Microsoft was so successful that it’s become a common practice for AI services to sign on with a particular cloud provider. Anthropic has received $8 billion in investment from Amazon, while making kernel-level modifications on the company’s hardware to make it better suited for AI training. Google Cloud has also signed on smaller AI companies like Lovable and Windsurf as “primary computing partners,” although those deals did not involve any investment. And even OpenAI has gone back to the well, receiving a <head>00 billion investment from Nvidia in September, giving it capacity to buy even more of the company’s GPUs. The rise of Oracle On June 30, 2025, Oracle revealed in an SEC filing that it had signed a $30 billion cloud services deal with an unnamed partner; this is more than the company’s cloud revenues for all of the previous fiscal year. OpenAI was eventually revealed as the partner, securing Oracle a spot alongside Google as one of OpenAI’s string of post-Microsoft hosting partners. Unsurprisingly, the company’s stock went shooting up. Techcrunch event San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026 A few months later, it happened again. On September 10, Oracle revealed a five-year, $300 billion deal for compute power, set to begin in 2027. Oracle’s stock climbed even higher, briefly making founder Larry Ellison the richest man in the world. The sheer scale of the deal is stunning: OpenAI does not have $300 billion to spend, so the figure presumes immense growth for both companies, and more than a little faith. But before a single dollar is spent, the deal has already cemented Oracle as one of the leading AI infrastructure providers — and a financial force to be reckoned with. Nvidia’s investment spree As AI labs scramble to build infrastructure, they’re mostly buying GPUs from one company: Nvidia. That trade has made Nvidia flush with cash — and it’s been investing that cash back into the industry in increasingly unconventional ways. In September 2025, Nvidia bought a 4% stake in rival Intel for $5 billion — but even more surprising has been the deals with its own customers. One week after the Intel deal was revealed, the company announced a <head>00 billion investment in OpenAI, paid for with GPUs that would be used in OpenAI’s ongoing data center projects. Nvidia has since announced a similar deal with Elon Musk’s xAI, and OpenAI launched a separate GPU-for-stock arrangement with AMD. If that seems circular, it’s because it is. Nvidia’s GPUs are valuable because they’re so scarce — and by trading them directly into an ever-inflating data center scheme, Nvidia is making sure they stay that way. You could say the same thing about OpenAI’s privately held stock, which is all the more valuable because it can’t be obtained through public markets. For now, OpenAI and Nvidia are riding high and nobody seems too worried — but if the moment