The scale of investment spending today is astounding. Just four companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft— spent a combined $376 billion on capex in 2025, equal to 28% of total S&P 500 capex. Comparisons with the late-1990s tech boom are inevitable, particularly in regard to how much productive capacity is being built.
In this Economics Weekly, Richard de Chazal looks at aggregate investment spending and the expansion in industrial capacity; he also compares the current cycle with the 1990s and discusses what those differences might mean for the Fed—and for a potential new Fed chair counting on a productivity boom to support lower interest rates.