Microsoft 2026 Capex Guidance: ~$170B vs Actual Spend

What does Microsoft's 2026 capex guidance cover?

Microsoft now expects approximately $170 billion of calendar-year 2026 capital expenditure. The plan has been lowered twice for different reasons. On July 29 it fell from about $190 billion to about $175 billion because more leases became operating leases, which capex excludes. On October 28 it fell to about $170 billion because some third-party capacity deliveries expected in fiscal Q1 were delayed; CFO Amy Hood said those deliveries shifted to the second half of the fiscal year, January to June 2027. Fiscal Q1 capex was $45.2 billion, below the more than $50 billion management had expected, and it expects fiscal Q2 capex above $50 billion. The number is a company capital-spending plan, not a disclosed pure-AI total.

What counts as capex for Microsoft?

Microsoft's reported capex includes additions obtained through finance leases as well as purchased property and equipment. That makes total capex different from cash paid for property and equipment in a quarter. Because operating leases are excluded, the July 2026 move of more data-center leases from finance to operating treatment lowered guidance to about $175 billion without changing planned spending. Effective FY2027, Microsoft extends the useful lives of data centers and offices from 15 to 25 years. The company also reports on a June fiscal year while the guidance is framed on a calendar-year basis, so fiscal-year comparisons require normalization.

• Short-lived assets such as GPUs and CPUs that can enter service and support revenue relatively quickly.
• Long-lived data-center sites and infrastructure intended to support monetization for 15 years or more.
• Storage, networking and replacement equipment needed to keep Azure and first-party products operating.

How should investors read Microsoft's spending?

Microsoft provides the clearest split between short-lived compute and long-lived infrastructure among the four companies in this tracker. That split matters because servers generally begin affecting depreciation and capacity sooner than a large campus. The central question is how quickly contracted cloud demand and product usage convert the new capacity into revenue relative to the depreciation and operating costs arriving behind it.

For the company's reported revenue, margins and filings, see the Microsoft (MSFT) stock research page. For the four-company total, see the 2026 hyperscaler capex tracker.