Global data centre capital expenditure is on course to exceed $1 trillion in 2026 according to new research from Dell’Oro Group, as hyperscale AI deployments accelerate and rising memory and storage costs push overall server spending higher.

The research company raised its worldwide data centre capex outlook for the year following a strong Q1, citing a combination of AI expansion, continued investment in general-purpose infrastructure and component cost inflation as the primary drivers.

Baron Fung, senior research director at Dell’Oro Group, stated rising memory and storage pricing substantially increased overall server system costs in the quarter and will likely remain a major capex growth factor throughout the year.

“At the same time, AI infrastructure deployments continue to accelerate rapidly, while hyperscalers also expanded general-purpose infrastructure to support public cloud growth, agentic AI workloads, and rising AI-related storage requirements,” he said.

The scale of spending among the largest cloud providers is striking. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, the top four US hyperscalers, increased data centre capex by 78% year-on-year, reflecting the intensity of the AI infrastructure race.

On the supply side, Dell led server OEM revenue followed by Supermicro and Lenovo, though white-box vendors serving the hyperscale market accounted for most overall server revenue. Nearly all server vendors benefited from higher memory-driven system pricing.

Despite already exceptional spending growth in the first half of the year, Dell’Oro expects capex growth to accelerate further in the second half, driven by the ramp-up of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform and refresh cycles for hyperscaler custom accelerator platforms.

Beyond the major cloud providers, Fung noted select enterprise verticals and sovereign cloud providers are also increasing AI infrastructure adoption, “though growth remains constrained by uncertain returns and infrastructure readiness”.

“While near-term demand remains healthy, some spending may have been pulled forward ahead of expected price increases later this year,” explained Fung.

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Meta Platforms expanded its partnership with Reliance Industries, agreeing to lease its first AI-enabled data centre in India as part of ambitions to grow its presence in the country.

Meta stated Reliance will build the facility in the Indian state of Gujarat with 168MW of capacity which Meta will use to “scale its AI infrastructure”.

The Facebook-owner explained it is investing aggressively to expand its capacity footprint, and India’s “tech-forward digital economy”, massive user base and the strength of its partnership with Reliance makes it the ideal location.

Reliance has identified Jamnagar, Gujarat as a strategic location, building out one of the largest data centre campuses in the world there, with access to the significant energy resources needed to power AI-enabled infrastructure.

The facility’s first phase will be to deliver 168MW of capacity, with options to scale.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the facility will help the company scale its AI infrastructure globally, “while deepening our long-term investment in India’s economy”.

Chairman and managing director of Reliance, Mukesh Ambani, added that building India’s first built-to-suit AI data centre for a company of Meta’s scale “demonstrates India’s readiness to be at the forefront of the global AI revolution”.

The collaboration builds on a long-standing partnership between the pair, with Meta investing $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms in 2020.

Clean energy
The site will be powered by renewable energy and cooled with desalinated seawater. Meta is set to cover the full cost of supporting the facility.

It has struck a deal for around 1GW of new clean and renewable energy, partnering with domestic companies CleanMax and Fourth Partner Energy.

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Anthropic launched a public version of its Mythos AI model, but with guardrails in place to block its use in sensitive areas such as cybersecurity.

The AI player stated its Claude Fable 5 model is its most powerful to date on its launch yesterday (9 June), which is two months after Anthropic first unveiled its Mythos-class model.

The limited Mythos preview sent shockwaves through the industry after the model uncovered thousands of software vulnerabilities.

Last week Anthropic expanded the reach of its Mythos AI model to an additional 150 companies across more than 15 countries.

The startup describes Fable 5 as state-of-the-art on nearly all tested benchmarks of AI capability, claiming exceptional performance across software engineering, knowledge work, vision and scientific research. The longer and more complex the task, Anthropic stated, the larger Fable 5’s lead over its other models.

Anthropic stated it has done extensive testing to ensure users cannot manipulate Fable 5 into bypassing its guidelines. Queries on restricted topics will instead receive a response from the company’s Claude Opus 4.8 model.

The AI player acknowledged the safeguards are tuned conservatively and will sometimes catch harmless requests but said they trigger on average in fewer than 5% of sessions.

“With more capable models arriving in the coming months, we’re working to improve our safeguards and reduce false positives as quickly as we can,” Anthropic stated.

For a smaller group of cyber defenders and infrastructure providers, Anthropic is simultaneously launching Claude Mythos 5, which is the same underlying model as Fable 5 but with safeguards lifted in some areas.

Mythos 5 will initially be deployed through Project Glasswing in collaboration with the US government. It carries what Anthropic described as the strongest cybersecurity capabilities of any model in the world.

Users who had access to the Claude Mythos Preview will be able to upgrade to Mythos 5, with broader access planned through an expanded trusted-access programme.

Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are priced at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens, less than half the price of Claude Mythos Preview.

The rollout comes as Anthropic, now valued at $965 billion, looks to extend the momentum which has pushed its valuation above rival OpenAI, with both startups racing toward public listings.

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