YouTube now has ‘competition’ inside Google and it is from the business once labelled as ‘money-losing’

Once seen as a laggard in Google parent Alphabet’s portfolio, Google Cloud has emerged as one of the company’s fastest-growing divisions, powered by surging demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and years of heavy investment in data centers, custom chips, and networking infrastructure. At earnings call this week, Alphabet said that its cloud revenue topped $15 billion in the third quarter, a 34% year-on-year increase, reflecting strong uptake of AI infrastructure and services — including Google’s own Gemini model.

The unit is now challenging YouTube as Alphabet’s second-largest revenue generator after search advertising.