{"id":925729,"date":"2026-08-08T12:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/08\/google-justifies-its-massive-ai-spending-with-a-booming-cloud-business\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T12:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:14:17","slug":"google-justifies-its-massive-ai-spending-with-a-booming-cloud-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/08\/google-justifies-its-massive-ai-spending-with-a-booming-cloud-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Google justifies its massive AI spending with a booming cloud business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alphabet investors have very publicly worried<\/a> that the company\u2019s massive AI spending<\/a> isn\u2019t worth the money. With the company\u2019s latest earnings report, those investors should be able to relax a little.<\/p>\n

The takeaway: Google\u2019s cloud business \u2014 driven largely by enterprise AI adoption \u2014 is booming. The search giant saw Google Cloud revenue spike 82% from where it was this time last year, climbing to $24.8 billion. That\u2019s well above last quarter\u2019s generous year-over-year growth, which showed a revenue jump of 63% to $20 billion \u2014 and it handily beats what Wall Street analysts expected for this quarter\u2019s growth (the expectation was $22.46 billion<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Those cloud gains were driven largely by enterprise AI solutions and enterprise AI infrastructure adoption, the company said, while also noting that its backlog of cloud contracting work \u2014 that is, work that it hasn\u2019t yet converted into revenue \u2014 had climbed to $514 billion.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s profit hit $112.1 billion, which is a massive jump from this time last year, when the company reported $28.1 billion in profit, the company\u2019s earnings report shows. Meanwhile, Alphabet\u2019s overall revenue grew 24% year-over-year during the past quarter to $119.8 billion. The company also saw Google Services revenue jump 15% to $94.5 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur AI investments are redefining what\u2019s possible across every part of our business,\u201d said Google CEO Sundar Pichai during Wednesday\u2019s earnings call. \u201cWe have exciting momentum across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

More people are also adopting Gemini, Google\u2019s AI chatbot, as the app currently enjoys 950 million monthly active users, the company said. In Q4 of 2025, Google reported that<\/a> the app had 750 million users.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that spiking revenue isn\u2019t unusual for Google. This marks the company\u2019s 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. But even by that standard, this quarter represents a particularly bountiful period for the tech giant.<\/p>\n

Alphabet\u2019s spending is still hefty, with its capital expenditures \u2014 the money it spends building data centers, buying chips, and expanding infrastructure \u2014 estimated to be between $180 billion and $190 billion for the year \u2014 a fact not lost on analysts during Wednesday\u2019s earnings call. Several pressed Pichai on when, and how much, those investments will pay off. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think our compute capacity investments in \u201927,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are seeing strong demand indicators, including long-term deals,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think, if anything, the dynamics look healthier than where we were about a year ago, so that\u2019s what gives us the confidence to undertake those investments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\n\t\tLucas is a senior writer at TechCrunch, where he covers artificial intelligence, consumer tech, and startups. He previously covered AI and cybersecurity at Gizmodo. <\/p>\n

You can contact Lucas by emailing lu*********<\/span>@********<\/span>ch.com<\/span>.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\tView Bio <\/svg><\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Lucas Ropek
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alphabet investors have very publicly worried that the company\u2019s massive AI spending isn\u2019t worth the money. With the company\u2019s latest earnings report, those investors should be able to relax a little. The takeaway: Google\u2019s cloud business \u2014 driven largely by enterprise AI adoption \u2014 is booming. The search giant saw Google Cloud revenue spike 82%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":925730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[496,32898],"tags":[5220,136934],"class_list":["post-925729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-google","category-justifies","tag-google","tag-justifies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}