It's bubble or nothing for Google as search giant looks to plow ~$180B into datacenters this year
(2026/02/05)
- Reference: 1770255120
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/05/alphabet_google_q4_2025/
- Source link:
Google’s parent Alphabet is doubling down on generative AI in 2026. On Wednesday's earnings call, the search and advertising giant boosted its full-year capital expenditures target to between $175 and $185 billion, roughly twice what it spent last year.
The search and ads giant will use that massive pile of cash to build datacenters and buy the kit to fill them, to support its own products and the infrastructure needs of partners like [1]Apple , [2]OpenAI , and [3]Anthropic .
Speaking during Alphabet’s [4]earnings call , CFO Anat Ashkenazi said roughly 60 percent of the company's 2026 capex spend, or about $105 to $111 billion, will go toward fast-depreciating assets like servers. The remaining 40 percent, or $70 to $74 billion, will support the construction and networking of new datacenter facilities.
[5]
Much of the server spend will go toward the deployment of AI infrastructure, which includes both Google's own in-house tensor processing units (TPUs) and Nvidia GPUs. Ashkenazi said investment in compute infrastructure will split evenly between internal workloads and the Google Cloud platform.
[6]
[7]
Spending all that money won’t be easy. On the company’s earnings call, analysts asked CEO Sundar Pichai what keeps him up at night. He replied that scaling compute capacity while managing the power, land, and supply chain constraints necessary to meet demand for AI services remains a persistent concern for the company.
Just like Meta, Alphabet isn't just shoehorning generative AI into every user-facing product it can. The company is also using the models to enhance its online ad businesses.
[8]
According to Philipp Schindler, Google's chief business officer, Gemini has helped improve the relevance of the ads it delivers alongside results from Google searches.
"Gemini's understanding of intent has increased our ability to deliver ads on longer, more complex searches that were previously challenging to monetize,” he said. "Gemini models also have a significant impact on core understanding in non-English languages, expanding opportunities for businesses to scale."
Alphabet's ad revenues across Google's Search, YouTube, and Network segments topped $82.28 billion during the quarter, an increase of more than 13 percent from this time last year.
[9]Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun
[10]Too much AI for some, too little for others: Why AMD can't win with investors
[11]Microsoft investors sweat cloud giant's OpenAI exposure
[12]Meta to pour the GDP of Kenya into AI infrastructure push in 2026
Google’s Cloud Platform (GCP) also ended the 2025 fiscal year on a high note.
Q4 cloud revenues jumped 47 percent year-over-year, to reach $17.66 billion. Strong demand for both AI and enterprise compute drove the growth.
[13]
"GCP's performance was driven by accelerating growth in enterprise AI products, which are generating billions in quarterly revenues," Ashkenazi said, adding that the cloud’s core services, including things like cybersecurity and data analytics services, also experienced heavy revenue gains during the quarter.
Put together, Alphabet raked in $34.45 billion in profits in Q4 on revenues of $113.82 billion. For the full year, meanwhile, revenues topped $402.84 billion of which Alphabet counted $132.17 billion in profits. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/apple_taps_google_gemini_siri/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/openai_google_tpu/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/google_anthropic_deal/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIK5-yi7a-c
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aYQj8OQwGnFUsOJROngOXgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/03/musk_spacex_xai_merge_hallucination_burning_man/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/amd_q4_fy_2025/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/microsoft_earnings_q2_2026/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/meta_2026_infrastructure_spend/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aYQj8OQwGnFUsOJROngOXgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The search and ads giant will use that massive pile of cash to build datacenters and buy the kit to fill them, to support its own products and the infrastructure needs of partners like [1]Apple , [2]OpenAI , and [3]Anthropic .
Speaking during Alphabet’s [4]earnings call , CFO Anat Ashkenazi said roughly 60 percent of the company's 2026 capex spend, or about $105 to $111 billion, will go toward fast-depreciating assets like servers. The remaining 40 percent, or $70 to $74 billion, will support the construction and networking of new datacenter facilities.
[5]
Much of the server spend will go toward the deployment of AI infrastructure, which includes both Google's own in-house tensor processing units (TPUs) and Nvidia GPUs. Ashkenazi said investment in compute infrastructure will split evenly between internal workloads and the Google Cloud platform.
[6]
[7]
Spending all that money won’t be easy. On the company’s earnings call, analysts asked CEO Sundar Pichai what keeps him up at night. He replied that scaling compute capacity while managing the power, land, and supply chain constraints necessary to meet demand for AI services remains a persistent concern for the company.
Just like Meta, Alphabet isn't just shoehorning generative AI into every user-facing product it can. The company is also using the models to enhance its online ad businesses.
[8]
According to Philipp Schindler, Google's chief business officer, Gemini has helped improve the relevance of the ads it delivers alongside results from Google searches.
"Gemini's understanding of intent has increased our ability to deliver ads on longer, more complex searches that were previously challenging to monetize,” he said. "Gemini models also have a significant impact on core understanding in non-English languages, expanding opportunities for businesses to scale."
Alphabet's ad revenues across Google's Search, YouTube, and Network segments topped $82.28 billion during the quarter, an increase of more than 13 percent from this time last year.
[9]Elon Musk merges xAI into SpaceX to spread universal consciousness via a sentient sun
[10]Too much AI for some, too little for others: Why AMD can't win with investors
[11]Microsoft investors sweat cloud giant's OpenAI exposure
[12]Meta to pour the GDP of Kenya into AI infrastructure push in 2026
Google’s Cloud Platform (GCP) also ended the 2025 fiscal year on a high note.
Q4 cloud revenues jumped 47 percent year-over-year, to reach $17.66 billion. Strong demand for both AI and enterprise compute drove the growth.
[13]
"GCP's performance was driven by accelerating growth in enterprise AI products, which are generating billions in quarterly revenues," Ashkenazi said, adding that the cloud’s core services, including things like cybersecurity and data analytics services, also experienced heavy revenue gains during the quarter.
Put together, Alphabet raked in $34.45 billion in profits in Q4 on revenues of $113.82 billion. For the full year, meanwhile, revenues topped $402.84 billion of which Alphabet counted $132.17 billion in profits. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/12/apple_taps_google_gemini_siri/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/01/openai_google_tpu/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/google_anthropic_deal/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIK5-yi7a-c
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aYQj8OQwGnFUsOJROngOXgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/03/musk_spacex_xai_merge_hallucination_burning_man/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/amd_q4_fy_2025/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/microsoft_earnings_q2_2026/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/meta_2026_infrastructure_spend/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aYQj8OQwGnFUsOJROngOXgAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Overflow
Google makes so much money, HMRC don't even know how to enter them into the calculator, so they don't bother checking if the right taxes have been paid.