Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC

Rising component prices are driving Big Tech's AI spending surge.

Microsoft and Meta's capital expenditure hikes largely result from higher component prices.

That suggests Big Tech companies haven't massively expanded their buildout plans lately.

Big Tech's AI spending is surging, though not necessarily because companies are building significantly more capacity.

This week, industry executives pointed to the same underlying issue: sharply rising component costs, especially for memory chips , are inflating capital expenditures spent on data centers and other equipment.

"We are increasing our infrastructure capex forecast for this year.…