Big US tech companies are set to spend about $900 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026 and $1.4 trillion in 2027, according to The Economist. Meanwhile, data from UK lender Capital on Tap shows business AI spending is climbing fast but from a tiny base, widening the gap between what companies spend building AI and what customers actually pay to use it.
America's biggest technology companies are on track to spend close to $900 billion on AI infrastructure this year, rising to $1.4 trillion in 2027, estimates from The Economist show. That spending is running far ahead of what businesses are actually paying for AI services, and the gap is becoming a central question for investors weighing the economics of the AI boom.
UK small business AI spending still tiny
Data from Capital on Tap, one of the UK's biggest SME lenders, shows the share of small businesses paying for AI services quadrupled from 3.2% in Q2 2024 to 12.8% in Q2 2026. The mean average spend on AI per small business also rose sharply, from £93 to £288 over the same period.
However, the median spend for Q2 2026 was much lower, at £75.60, because the mean is skewed by a small group of heavy spenders — the 99th percentile of AI spenders each paid £3,159. On average, AI tools still account for just 0.1% of the value of all card spending that Capital on Tap processes.
Extrapolated spend lags infrastructure bets
Extrapolated across the wider economy, that puts total UK spending on AI services at about £4 billion a year — less than a tenth of Tesco's turnover. That broadly matches other estimates that put annual global AI spending somewhere between £100 billion and £150 billion.
Business AI spending would have to grow by orders of magnitude to make the infrastructure bets, much of it debt-funded, pay off. It is growing, and fast, but not fast enough to close that gap yet.
Some tech leaders have offered starker predictions about AI's economic impact. Monzo founder Tom Blomfield has said unemployment will likely surge over the next five years as AI replaces more human output, while Elon Musk has suggested it could approach 100% within a decade.
Source: Oilprice.com
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