TOKYO, March 31 : Massive investments in artificial intelligence that underpinned record runs in equities face a major hurdle as the Middle East crisis clouds prospects for growth and energy costs, said Melissa Otto, head of research at S&P Global Visible Alpha. Before the Iran war broke out, tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta planned to spend about $635 billion on data centres, chips, and other AI infrastructure in 2026, S&P Global has said. That figure was up from $383 billion