Wednesday afternoon is the biggest few hours of this earnings season, and it happens in two acts.

Act one, 1:00 PM Chicago time: the Federal Reserve announces its interest-rate decision. That’s the price of money for the entire economy, and it lands about two hours before the main event.

Act two, after the market closes: Microsoft and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) report their quarterly numbers. Alphabet talks to investors at 3:30 PM our time, Microsoft at 4:30 PM. Amazon follows on Thursday.

Two of the richest companies on Earth, back to back, on the same evening the Fed moves. Here’s what Wednesday is actually about — in plain English.

First, how these two print money

Microsoft rents. Businesses pay monthly rent for Microsoft 365 and Windows, and they pay a second, bigger rent for Azure — Microsoft’s cloud, which is basically renting Microsoft’s computers by the minute. Every time a company runs AI on those computers, the meter spins faster and Microsoft’s bill grows. Steady rent, plus a meter that AI keeps spinning faster. That’s the machine.

Alphabet sells attention, then rents computers. Google Search and YouTube make money the old-fashioned way: advertisers pay to stand in front of billions of people. Then there’s Google Cloud — the same rent-a-computer business as Azure — which has become the company’s second engine. Ads pay the bills; the cloud is the growth story.

Two different machines. One shared problem. And that problem is the whole story on Wednesday.

The one question: is the spending paying for itself yet?

Building AI takes factories. Not software factories — real ones. Warehouses full of specialized computers, drinking enormous amounts of electricity. In finance language this spending is called capex (capital expenditures). In plain English: it’s the construction bill.

Here’s the simplest way to judge whether the construction bill is under control. Every quarter, a business brings in a pile of cash from actually running itself. Then it pays the construction bill. What’s left over is called free cash flow — the money truly left after keeping the lights on and building the future.

If the construction bill is bigger than the pile of cash coming in, free cash flow goes negative. The company is spending faster than it earns, and covering the difference with savings or borrowed money.

That is exactly where most of Big Tech now sits — and the market has started asking questions. Meta (Facebook’s parent) reported last Wednesday and set the frame for this whole week: it guided its 2026 construction bill to roughly $135–145 billion, with negative free cash flow in its latest quarter. The message Wall Street took away: demand for AI is not the question anymore. Whether the spending pays is.

The scoreboard going in

Based on reported figures from the most recent quarter (April–June 2026):

• Microsoft brought in about $55.4 billion in operating cash and spent about $35.8 billion on construction. Cash left over. Positive.
• Amazon brought in about $45.4 billion and spent about $54.2 billion. Spent more than it brought in. Negative.
• Alphabet and Meta also spent more on property and equipment than their operations brought in in their latest reported quarters — and Alphabet raised substantial sums in debt and stock sales during 2026, per filings, to help fund the build-out.

Read that again, because it’s the cleanest fact of the week: of the giants racing to build AI, Microsoft is currently the only one whose construction bill still fits inside the cash its business generates. Everyone else is reaching into savings or borrowing. Wednesday is where we find out if that changes.

The bars Microsoft and Alphabet have to clear

Companies tell you in advance roughly what to expect. Those numbers are called guidance — the bar the company sets for itself. Wednesday’s report cards get graded against these bars:

Microsoft

• Azure growth: the company has guided to roughly 45% growth in constant currency (that’s growth measured without exchange-rate noise) for this quarter, up from 43% last quarter. Faster than 45% means the AI meter is spinning harder than promised. Slower means the opposite, and the stock will hear about it.
• The construction bill: Microsoft guided to roughly $50 billion of capex for this single quarter, up from about $41 billion last quarter. Watch whether that number grows again — and whether management starts connecting the spending to actual revenue.
• One earnings preview puts expected earnings at roughly $4.70 per share. Be careful with that number: it’s an outside preview’s estimate of what analysts expect, not something Microsoft promised. The bars that matter are the ones the company set itself.

Alphabet

• The cloud race: Alphabet reports the same evening, so its cloud growth number lands head-to-head against Microsoft’s Azure number. Whichever cloud grows faster writes the headline.
• Capex commentary: Alphabet’s own construction bill — and any change to what it plans to spend — is the watch item, for the same free-cash-flow reason above.

And keep one eye on Thursday: Amazon reports after Thursday’s close, and for Amazon the wording may matter more than the numbers. Its free cash flow is already negative on the scoreboard above, so what management says about future spending will move the story more than what it already spent.

The bottom line

Wednesday is not really about whether Microsoft and Alphabet had good quarters. By most measures, they will have. It’s about a simpler, older question — the one every business eventually has to answer: you’re building at a historic pace; is the building paying for itself yet?

Microsoft walks in as the one giant still answering yes. By Wednesday night, we’ll know if it still can — and whether Alphabet is any closer to joining it.

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