科技英语：AI争霸赛，头部企业投入超万亿美金

Big Tech is spending big on the AI arms race.
大型科技公司在人工智能军备竞赛上投入巨资。

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.
根据 Bernstein 的一份研究报告，亚马逊、微软、谷歌、Meta 和苹果等大型科技公司今年有望花费总计 2000 亿美元购买和维护房地产和设备等固定资产。

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.
伯恩斯坦分析师表示，未来五年，大型科技公司在固定资产上的支出（也称为资本支出或资本支出）可能会超过 1 万亿美元。 大型科技公司的大部分资本支出都用于技术基础设施，例如土地、数据中心、服务器和网络设备。

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.
未来几年，这些公司将把支出重点放在支持大型科技公司的生成人工智能雄心所需的 GPU 和数据中心上。


"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 分析师在报告中写道：“人工智能成为投资话题已有 18 个多月了，但这一投资周期的规模仍然令人惊讶。”

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.
伯恩斯坦的估计表明大型科技公司的支出急剧增加，这些公司在过去两年中一直在削减成本，包括剥离房地产等资产。 近年来，大型科技公司将年收入的约 10% 用于资本支出。 未来两年，这一比例将跃升至 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.
分析师表示，大型科技公司今年预计支出 2000 亿美元，超过了标准普尔指数中接下来的 90 家电信公司明年在此类资产上的支出总额。

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.
这并不是行业内最大的公司第一次集体增加资本支出。 分析师表示，这种“集中支出”水平与埃克森美孚、雪佛龙、道达尔、壳牌和英国石油等大型石油公司2013年支出1660亿美元的水平类似。

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.
华尔街并没有长期容忍大型石油公司的巨额支出。 到 2013 年底，投资者呼吁这些公司停止在大型项目上的支出，并将部分资金返还给股东。

That kind of blowback may not happen for Big Tech.
对于大型科技公司来说，这种反弹可能不会发生。

"If Big Tech doesn't invest, they leave themselves exposed to disruption," Bernstein analysts wrote.
伯恩斯坦分析师写道：“如果大型科技公司不投资，他们就会面临颠覆的风险。”

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.
如果公司优先考虑为人工智能项目雇用新员工而不是重新分配现有员工，那么未来几年大型科技公司的利润率可能会因员工数量和管理成本而进一步受到压力。

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.
伯恩斯坦分析师指出，大型科技公司之前的巨额投资周期会持续一到三年，但这个周期可能会更长。

"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.
分析师写道：“也许我们在某个时候会遇到需求空洞，但如果人工智能真的是下一代互联网，预计投资强度将在更长时间内保持较高水平。”