{"id":455227,"date":"2026-02-05T10:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/455227\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:00:14","slug":"google-parent-alphabet-says-it-could-double-capital-spending-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/455227\/","title":{"rendered":"Google parent Alphabet says it could double capital spending in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Google’s research facility in Mountain View, Calif., in May, 2025.Carlos Barria\/Reuters<\/p>\n

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 push ahead in the AI race.<\/p>\n

Alphabet shares were volatile in after-hours trading \u2013 falling 6 per cent before recouping losses, as investors weighed the swell in spending against surging revenue and profit, both of which beat expectations in the December quarter. <\/p>\n

The company said it was targeting capital expenditure of US$175-billion to US$185-billion this year, a massive jump compared with average analyst expectations that it would spend about US$115.26-billion this year, according to data compiled by LSEG.<\/p>\n

CEO Sundar Pichai said in a release that Alphabet hiked its forecast spending \u201cto meet customer demand and capitalize on the growing opportunities we have ahead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe\u2019re seeing our AI investments and infrastructure drive revenue and growth across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta forecasts sharp increase to capital expenditures as it builds AI infrastructure<\/a><\/p>\n

Why Celestica\u2019s shares are down despite surging demand for its AI equipment<\/a><\/p>\n

The company spent US$91.45-billion in 2025, primarily on AI infrastructure including servers, data centers and networking equipment. That compares with its projections for total spending of between US$91-billion and US$93-billion last year. Growth in Google\u2019s cloud division, where the company is enjoying early returns on AI investment, helped the stock pare losses. <\/p>\n

The unit\u2019s revenue grew 48 per cent to US$17.7-billion in the fourth quarter ended December, compared with analysts\u2019 average estimate of a 35.2-per-cent jump, according to data compiled by LSEG.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle Cloud growth was far ahead of expectations and importantly higher growth than Microsoft Azure for the first time in several years,\u201d said Gil Luria, D.A. Davidson analyst. \u201cThe acceleration in Google Cloud seems to justify the increased investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company reported total revenue of US$113.83-billion for the quarter, beating analyst estimates of US$111.43-billion, per LSEG data. Adjusted profit per share of US$2.82 also beat estimates of US$2.63.<\/p>\n

Cloud computing majors have poured hundreds of billions of dollars to expand their AI infrastructure, both to meet the growing enterprise demand for their cloud services and to fuel their own development of AI technologies and products.<\/p>\n

Like larger rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft\u2019s Azure, Google Cloud has been grappling with capacity constraints that have dented its ability to fully cash in on AI demand from its customers.<\/p>\n

Along with Meta, the big cloud companies are expected to collectively shell out more than US$500-billion on AI this year. Meta last week hiked capital investment for AI development this year by 73 per cent, targeting spending between US$115-billion and US$135-billion, while Microsoft also reported record quarterly capital expenditure.<\/p>\n

The aggressive expansion in outlay comes at a time when investors have increasingly grown concerned about payoffs from AI investments. However, Google has been able to show strong progress in its AI efforts.<\/p>\n

The launch of its latest Gemini 3 model in November saw strong reception and propelled the company forward in the AI arms race. Following the launch, Sam Altman, CEO of AI front-runner and ChatGPT creator OpenAI, reportedly issued an internal \u201ccode red\u201d to push teams to accelerate development.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s Gemini AI assistant app exceeded 750 million users per month, Pichai said, up by 100 million compared with November.<\/p>\n

Last month, Google struck a deal to power Apple\u2019s revamped Siri voice assistant with its Gemini models, a partnership that unlocks a huge market for Google, with Apple\u2019s installed base of over 2.5 billion devices. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Google’s research facility in Mountain View, Calif., in May, 2025.Carlos Barria\/Reuters Alphabet said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-455227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}