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A woman trying out a VR headset at an amusement arcade in Manhattan, New York City.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
The Economist
Is there any limit to the ambition and hubris of big tech firms? In October, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg renamed Facebook Meta and described humankind's new future in virtual worlds. On Jan 18, Microsoft, worth more than US$2 trillion (S$2.7 trillion), decided it wasn't big enough and bid US$69 billion for Activision Blizzard, a video-games firm, in its biggest ever deal.
These decisions are part of a vast new investment surge at five of America's biggest firms, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft - call them Maama. Together, they have invested US$280 billion in the past year, equivalent to 9 per cent of American business investment, up from 4 per cent five years ago.
