Forget Speakers. Big Money Competes in Servers.

The technology industry is captivated by titans fighting over voice-activated home speakers. The war among Amazon, Google and Apple is technology's newest frontier, but it's also pretty small potatoes. People might spend a few billion dollars this year on computer-assisted speakers such as the Amazon Echo, based on forecasts from research firm Parks Associates.

The big-ticket fight on the tech frontier is happening not in happy homes bathed in WiFi but in the cold, warehouse-sized buildings that house rows upon rows of computer equipment that function as the invisible locomotive of the internet. About $1 trillion will be spent in 2017 on this and other gear typically purchased by corporations and governments. (Yes, you read that stunning figure correctly.)