July 22 (Reuters) – Alphabet topped Wall Street estimates for quarterly cloud revenue growth on Wednesday, as the Google parent benefited from strong demand for its cloud computing services from enterprises worldwide thanks to the AI boom.
Revenue at Google Cloud rose 82% to $24.8 billion during the quarter ended June, accelerating from the 63% jump reported in the preceding three months. Analysts on average expected a 64% increase, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Shares of the company were down more than 1% in extended trading.
The third-largest cloud services provider behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, Google has seen demand surge as companies race to secure the cloud capacity needed to develop, train and run AI models, helping it land major deals with firms, including Anthropic.
The robust cloud growth may ease some concerns over the company’s hefty AI spending. Google has rapidly scaled up investments in data centers and advanced chips to build out its AI infrastructure, but investors have been worried whether the outlay would translate into sustainable revenue growth.
Big Tech is expected to spend well over $700 billion this year primarily on AI, while Morgan Stanley has pegged the estimated spend at more than $1 trillion for the next year.
While Google Cloud has made Alphabet a big beneficiary of the AI boom, the company’s own AI efforts have lost some steam this year after it delayed the June launch of its next flagship model, Gemini 3.5 Pro.
That has left Google trailing in the AI coding tools market and fueled concerns on Wall Street, especially as Anthropic and OpenAI have consistently rolled out enterprise-focused upgrades, and Chinese open-source models have also gained strong traction.
Google’s Search business has emerged as a bright spot, with the company’s AI initiatives drawing more advertising dollars.
Features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode have helped boost overall search queries and drive deeper engagement by allowing users to execute longer, conversational searches. Google has capitalized on the strong usage by expanding ads within those AI features.
Alphabet shares have been among the best performers in the “Magnificent 7” group of stocks this year so far, rising nearly 11%. But concerns over the Gemini delays, some high-profile executive departures and regulatory pressures have dragged the stock about 9% lower since the end of April.
Rivals Microsoft and Amazon are set to report their quarterly earnings next week.
(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Aurora Ellis)
Comments