Payden & Rygel: Software stocks vs hyperscaler capex projection

Payden & Rygel: Software stocks vs hyperscaler capex projection

9 februari 2026

Technologie

This week, software technology stocks saw a 12% drawdown as of Thursday, even as major hyperscalers announced stellar revenue growth and higher-than-expected capital expenditure projections. Why?

We can name a few reasons. First, the debut of Claude's Al agent bot, which can operate independently in browsers, heightened fears that Al will replace traditional software technologies, particularly as rising hyperscaler spend is expected to improve Al performance. Second, investors are increasingly concerned that Al investment may not generate sufficient revenue to justify the spend.

However, we have a more positive spin on both stories. First, rather than replacing traditional software, Al agents may lead to greater software use, not less. Second, we are not yet seeing an oversupply of data centers. Hyperscalers continue to report unmet demand for compute (i.e., insufficient data center and semiconductor capacity), which is critical for both training frontier Al models and running existing chatbots.

Put differently, if demand for compute to run chatbots still outstrips supply, imagine the compute required to power an army of agents running 24/7-each using at least four times as much compute as chatbots. 

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