
China's big AI spenders are 1/8 the size of the US hyperscalers but growing CAPEX faster
Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and Baidu combined are spending around $102B on AI this year. The big four are spending something like eight times that so on paper it's not even close lol
However, the Chinese four are growing, spending 80%+ year over year, which is actually a touch faster than the americans at ~77%. When the smaller group grows as fast or faster than the bigger one, the gap stops widening in percentage terms.
I do keep seeing people treat the US lead as permanent, and this made me think the trajectory matters more than the current gap.
Does anyone closer to this think the 80% growth is real and sustainable, or does it hit a chip wall first?