• The tech giants ignore DeepSeek and its investors: they will spend nearly 290 billion euros on artificial intelligence in 2025.
• During their recent quarterly earnings presentations, the tech giants confirmed their intention to continue with massive investments in AI model development and infrastructure building.

When DeepSeek came into the spotlight a few weeks ago and demonstrated — through an academic article — that it was possible to develop and train an artificial intelligence (AI) model as powerful as the leading ones from OpenAI, it seemed like the Big Tech companies would take notice.

If this Chinese startup could compete with the developer of ChatGPT using Nvidia microchips that were considerably less powerful than those the company of Jensen Huang is currently trying to market, the big players in the tech sector could halt their AI investment spending.

Moreover, the model developed by Liang Wenfeng’s company seemed to have arrived at just the right time for that to happen: a few days before the quarterly earnings presentations of the major tech firms, where shareholders could question them about continuing to invest so much money in AI when DeepSeek had proven it wasn’t necessary.

However, it seems that neither sector-specific investors nor the Chinese startup itself have been able to shift the massive AI spending trend.

As reported by the Financial Times, the four leading tech companies in the United States — Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft — plan to invest more than 300 billion dollars (around 289 billion euros at the current exchange rate) in artificial intelligence during 2025.

The 300 billion dollars will largely be due to Amazon, which has surpassed its direct competitors and announced a planned expenditure of more than 100 billion dollars (96 billion euros) this year on AI infrastructure. For example, for the construction of new data centers for its subsidiary, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

According to the British outlet, investment in artificial intelligence by these four companies increased by 63% last year, reaching historical levels, but now the executives of these organizations have promised to further accelerate their AI spending, thus ignoring shareholders’ concerns about the enormous sums being allocated to this emerging technology.

It is worth recalling that both Microsoft and Google’s parent company (Alphabet) have recently lost up to 200 billion dollars (192 billion euros) in market value after posting weaker-than-expected financial results in their respective cloud computing divisions.

Jim Tierney, director of the U.S. growth fund at Alliance Bernstein, told Financial Times that “the unbridled enthusiasm across the sector for the Magnificent Seven has been replaced by pockets of skepticism and has created some ‘let me see it first’ situations.”

“The concerns I had since the summer have been magnified today,” said this stock analyst, adding, “If we see — or when we see — the acceleration of cloud growth in Google or Azure [Microsoft], or if we see improved acceptance of Copilot, investors will feel more comfortable investing in Alphabet or Microsoft. Meanwhile, cheaper and more commercialized AI models will likely amplify shareholders’ concerns.”

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Ramón Armero is a journalist and writer who collaborates with Business Insider Spain. He has worked alongside other journalists like Hugh Langley and Hasan Chowdhury on articles related to artificial intelligence and tech companies.