Google backs up $185 bn in AI spending with receipts

JUST WHEN I thought I’d grown immune to seeing huge numbers attached to the artificial intelligence business, Alphabet Inc. comes along with this: “To meet customer demand and capitalise on the growing opportunities we have ahead of us, our 2026 Capex investments are anticipated to be in the range of $175 to $185 billion.”

- DAVE LEE Bloomberg

$185 billion! Analysts had been expecting something more like $119.5 billion, according to Bloomberg consensus data, which in itself would have been about a 30% increase from 2025. Now investors are being asked to swallow a potential spending increase of more than double.

At first, it seemed as if perhaps they wouldn’t. The initial reaction to the projections sent shares down more than 7% in after-hours trading in what looked for a moment like a repeat of Microsoft Corp.’s tricky earnings last week, when solid performance wasn’t enough to offset rising costs for the company’s AI build-out — its shares are down 14% over the past five days.

But as investors parsed the rest of the Google picture, their pessimism subsided. Shares retraced their losses and actually posted gains before settling a little lower later.