Opinion: Concerns about AI capital expenditure are mounting, putting pressure on global tech stocks.

According to Mars Finance, on June 26th, as the impact of Micron (MU)'s earnings report continued to unfold, global tech stocks experienced a widespread sell-off, with major tech stocks such as Apple (AAPL) also falling sharply, triggering market concerns about the profit prospects of traditional tech giants. Analysts pointed out that although Apple has not been deeply involved in the AI infrastructure capital expenditure race, facing rising AI supply chain costs and product price adjustment pressures, the market is worried that price increases may suppress end-user demand, further impacting revenue and profit performance in the coming quarters, thus leading Apple to choose to realize profits first. At the same time, market focus has shifted from AI computing power demand to capital returns. Bloomberg compiled data showing that the large amount of free cash flow accumulated by the world's five largest hyperscale cloud service providers over the past two decades has shrunk significantly due to the continuous high-intensity AI capital expenditures in the past two years. Analysts believe that the current market is exhibiting a "profit from selling shovels, pressure from buying shovels" trading logic—AI hardware and semiconductor suppliers benefit from continuous orders and their stock prices are rising, while cloud computing and internet giants that bear huge AI investments are facing pressure on cash flow and profitability. If AI hardware costs continue to rise in the future, and the construction cycle of AI infrastructure, as Huang Renxun said, will last for about ten years, the question of who will bear the continuous investment and how to achieve commercial returns will become the core test for the valuation of global technology stocks.