科技英語：AI爭霸賽，頭部企業(yè)投入超萬億美金

Big Tech is spending big on the AI arms race.
大型科技公司在人工智能軍備競賽上投入巨資。

The Big Tech companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple — are on track this year to spend a combined $200 billion on buying and maintaining fixed assets like real estate and equipment, according to a Bernstein research note.
根據(jù) Bernstein 的一份研究報告，亞馬遜、微軟、谷歌、Meta 和蘋果等大型科技公司今年有望花費(fèi)總計 2000 億美元購買和維護(hù)房地產(chǎn)和設(shè)備等固定資產(chǎn)。

In the next five years, spending by Big Tech on fixed assets — also known as capital expenditures, or capex — could surpass $1 trillion, Bernstein analysts said. The majority of Big Tech's capital expenditures go toward technical infrastructure such as land, data centers, servers, and networking equipment.
伯恩斯坦分析師表示，未來五年，大型科技公司在固定資產(chǎn)上的支出（也稱為資本支出或資本支出）可能會超過 1 萬億美元。 大型科技公司的大部分資本支出都用于技術(shù)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，例如土地、數(shù)據(jù)中心、服務(wù)器和網(wǎng)絡(luò)設(shè)備。

In the coming years, these companies will focus spending on the GPUs and data centers needed to support Big Tech's generative artificial intelligence ambitions.
未來幾年，這些公司將把支出重點放在支持大型科技公司的生成人工智能雄心所需的 GPU 和數(shù)據(jù)中心上。


"AI has been an investment topic for 18+ months now, yet the scale of this investment cycle still surprises," Bernstein analysts wrote in the note.
Bernstein 分析師在報告中寫道：“人工智能成為投資話題已有 18 個多月了，但這一投資周期的規(guī)模仍然令人驚訝。”

Bernstein's estimates represent a sharp increase in spending for Big Tech, which has spent the last two years cutting costs, including shedding assets like real estate. Big Tech companies have spent about 10% of annual revenue on capex costs in recent years. That percentage will jump to 14% or 15% in the next two years.
伯恩斯坦的估計表明大型科技公司的支出急劇增加，這些公司在過去兩年中一直在削減成本，包括剝離房地產(chǎn)等資產(chǎn)。 近年來，大型科技公司將年收入的約 10% 用于資本支出。 未來兩年，這一比例將躍升至 14% 或 15%。

The analysts said the $200 billion Big Tech companies are projected to spend this year surpasses what the next 90 telecommunications companies in the S&P will spend on these types of assets altogether next year.
分析師表示，大型科技公司今年預(yù)計支出 2000 億美元，超過了標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾指數(shù)中接下來的 90 家電信公司明年在此類資產(chǎn)上的支出總額。

This isn't the first time an industry's largest companies have collectively increased capex spending. The analysts said that this "concentrated spending" level is similar to that of Big Oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, Total, Shell, and BP, which spent $166 billion in 2013.
這并不是行業(yè)內(nèi)最大的公司第一次集體增加資本支出。 分析師表示，這種“集中支出”水平與埃克森美孚、雪佛龍、道達(dá)爾、殼牌和英國石油等大型石油公司2013年支出1660億美元的水平類似。

Wall Street didn't tolerate Big Oil's big spending for long. By the end of 2013, investors called for those companies to stop spending on megaprojects and return some of that money to shareholders.
華爾街并沒有長期容忍大型石油公司的巨額支出。 到 2013 年底，投資者呼吁這些公司停止在大型項目上的支出，并將部分資金返還給股東。

That kind of blowback may not happen for Big Tech.
對于大型科技公司來說，這種反彈可能不會發(fā)生。

"If Big Tech doesn't invest, they leave themselves exposed to disruption," Bernstein analysts wrote.
伯恩斯坦分析師寫道：“如果大型科技公司不投資，他們就會面臨顛覆的風(fēng)險。”

Big Tech's profit margins in the coming years could be further strained by head count and overhead costs if companies prioritize hiring new employees for AI initiatives instead of reallocating existing workers.
如果公司優(yōu)先考慮為人工智能項目雇用新員工而不是重新分配現(xiàn)有員工，那么未來幾年大型科技公司的利潤率可能會因員工數(shù)量和管理成本而進(jìn)一步受到壓力。

The Bernstein analysts noted that previous periods of heavy investment by Big Tech have lasted one to three years, but this cycle might be longer.
伯恩斯坦分析師指出，大型科技公司之前的巨額投資周期會持續(xù)一到三年，但這個周期可能會更長。

"Perhaps we'll hit an air pocket in demand at some point, but if AI is really the next generation of the internet, expect investment intensity to remain elevated for longer," the analysts wrote.
分析師寫道：“也許我們在某個時候會遇到需求空洞，但如果人工智能真的是下一代互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，預(yù)計投資強(qiáng)度將在更長時間內(nèi)保持較高水平。”