Google parent Alphabet says capital spending in 2026 could double, cloud business booms

Alphabet and its Big Tech rivals are expected to collectively shell out more than $500 billion on AI this year. Meta last week hiked capital investment for AI development this year by 73%, while Microsoft ‌also reported record ‌quarterly capital expenditure.

Alphabet said on Wednesday that capital expenditure could as much as double this ⁠year, in yet another aggressive spending ramp-up by the Google parent as it deepens investments to allay constraints on compute capacity and push ahead in the AI race.