Zero stroke is an apocryphal condition supposedly seen during times of extreme hyperinflation. Victims, faced with unmanageably large prices, lose their grip on ciphers and find themselves compelled to write strings of zeros at the end of every number. First reported in 1920s Germany, the condition has surfaced anew, in Silicon Valley.
Companies such as Apple, Alphabet and Meta Platforms are tossing around 11 and 12-digit sums such that the amounts are losing their power to impress. The maker of iPhones this week said it would invest $500bn in the US over the next four years. Microsoft-backed OpenAI has pledged the same amount for its “Stargate” data centre project — also over four years.
They are partly just keeping up with the Joneses. Elsewhere in the tech sector Amazon, Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Microsoft are collectively deploying $320bn on capital expenditure in their current fiscal year — about 40 per cent more than the previous 12 months, largely on artificial intelligence initiatives. A decade ago they shelled out just $23bn.