Alphabet eyes $185B AI capex in 2026

Alphabet is not newly “eyeing” $185 billion in 2026 spending. It told investors on February 4 that 2026 capital expenditures are expected to be $175 billion to $185 billion. (abc.xyz) (s206.q4cdn.com) The number came with Alphabet’s fourth-quarter 2025 results, when the company said annual revenue topped $400 billion for the first time and Google Cloud revenue rose 48% to $17.7 billion. (s206.q4cdn.com) Sundar Pichai said Google Cloud ended 2025 at an annual run rate above $70 billion, and the company’s backlog grew 55% quarter over quarter to $240 billion. (abc.xyz) Alphabet framed the spending as a response to customer demand for artificial intelligence computing, not as a one-off moonshot. The company said the money is meant to expand capacity for the opportunities ahead. (s206.q4cdn.com) That scale stands out because Alphabet spent $91.4 billion on capital expenditures in 2025, so the top end of the 2026 range would be roughly double last year’s level. (cnbc.com) (s206.q4cdn.com) Google has spent the past week showing where that money goes. At Google Cloud Next on April 22, it highlighted eighth-generation Tensor Processing Units, a new Virgo data-center network fabric, and a broader “AI Hypercomputer” buildout. (blog.google) (cloud.google.com) The spending plan also now sits next to a much larger external bet. Reuters reported on April 24 that Alphabet will invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic, starting with $10 billion in cash and another $30 billion tied to performance targets. (reuters.com) Anthropic said the new money will help expand computing capacity, linking Alphabet’s financial commitment to the same infrastructure squeeze driving its own data-center spending. (reuters.com) So the cleaner version of the story is this: Alphabet already set a $175 billion to $185 billion capex range for 2026, and the latest developments around Cloud Next and Anthropic show how aggressively it is trying to fill that capacity. (abc.xyz) (blog.google) (reuters.com)