It's no secret that $ $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ 's stock price tend...

It's no secret that $ $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ 's stock price tends to track big tech's capex. A few observations:

▶️The major upward revisions for capex came in 2024, as 2023 was still more about post-COVID normalization and cost-cutting. Some firms ( $AMZN $META) even reduced capex in 2023.

- 2025E consensus for the "Big 4" (MSFT, GOOGL, META, AMZN) combined moved from $167B (Jan 2023) to $182B (Jan 2024) to $230B (Oct 2024).

- 2024E consensus shifted from $160B (Jan 2023) to $170B (Jan 2024) to $200B (Oct 2024).

▶️Capex revisions usually follow a step function, often around earnings. 3Q23 was an exception, which could be one reason why NVDA's stock stayed flat in 2H23.

▶️Zooming into 3Q23, only $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ had an upward revision in capex. $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ , $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ , and $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ saw limited or no changes:

- $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ missed capex: 3Q23 “The growth in reported cash CapEx in Q3 is somewhat muted due to the timing of supplier payments which can cause variability from quarter-to-quarter.”

- $Meta Platforms (META.US)$ 's FY24 capex guide was barely revised up:
2Q23: “We expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $27 billion to $30 billion, lowered from our prior estimate of $30 billion to $33 billion”
3Q23: “We anticipate our full year 2024 capital expenditures will be in the range of $30 billion to $35 billion”

- $Amazon (AMZN.US)$ was still going through capex reduction: 3Q23 “For the full year 2023, we expect capital investments to be approximately $50 billion compared to $59 billion in 2022”.

▶️Looking ahead -
As models grow, training costs increase exponentially (5x+ per version), and inferencing compute becomes another flywheel of spending. Are consensus capex projections keeping up with this acceleration? What would the Capex vs. $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ chart look like for the next few quarters?