Google will significantly increase investments in artificial intelligence, cloud services, and infrastructure in 2026, setting a new record for the tech industry.
This is reported by Business • Media
Significant growth in capital expenditures and market reaction
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, forecasts capital expenditures in 2026 to be between $175 and $185 billion. The majority of these funds will be directed towards developing infrastructure for artificial intelligence, new data centers, and expanding cloud services. This forecast significantly exceeded analysts’ expectations, who were anticipating expenditures of around $119.5 billion, even considering market growth.
Following the release of this forecast, Alphabet’s shares temporarily lost over 7% in after-hours trading. However, the market partially recovered after analyzing the quarterly financial results, which turned out to be stronger than expected. At the time of preparing this material, the company’s shares were trading above $319, with a market capitalization remaining at $3.86 trillion.
AI and partnership projects drive Google’s growth
The last quarter showed significant growth in revenue and profit for Alphabet. The advertising business, cloud division, and search services stood out, with Google Search demonstrating a 17% year-over-year revenue increase. According to Alphabet’s management, the development of artificial intelligence has become a key focus of the company’s strategy.
Google is actively integrating its Gemini platform into Gmail, Chrome, and other products, resulting in an increase of 100 million monthly active users. The company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, noted that user engagement continues to grow.
“The company is actively integrating Gemini into Gmail, Chrome, and other services, and the number of monthly active users has increased by 100 million. According to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, user engagement metrics continue to rise.”
Google Cloud’s division is also showing dynamic growth — revenue increased by 48% year-over-year, and the order backlog for future computing capabilities grew by 55%. This indicates high demand from corporate clients for infrastructure to train and implement artificial intelligence models.
An additional stimulus for AI development has been the multi-year partnership between Google and Apple: the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be built on the basis of Gemini models and Google’s cloud services. Additionally, Walmart is integrating purchases directly into Google’s Gemini.