The Capex (capital expenditure) of hyperscale operators have surged 59 percent in Q2 2018. Capex of hyperscale operators topped $53 billion in the first half from $31 billion in the first half of 2017.

The top five hyperscale operators in terms of their annual spenders include Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Facebook for the last ten quarters, accounting for well over 70 percent of hyperscale Capex.

Hyperscale operators’ data centers have now grown in number to 420. The research is based on analysis of the capex and data center footprint of 20 of the world’s major cloud and internet service firms, including the largest operators in IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, search, social networking and e-commerce.

Other leading hyperscale spenders in Q2 included Alibaba, Baidu, IBM, JD.com, NTT, Oracle, SAP and Tencent.

“Hyperscale capex is one of the clearest indicators of the growth in cloud computing, digital enterprise and online lifestyles,” said John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.