The only thing as impressive as Google's artificial-intelligence revenue is its spending. The search company's earnings report showed there are still winners to be found in the AI trade, but investors will have to swallow more risk and be more selective in their picks.
There were two eye-popping figures in Google-parent Alphabet's earnings, 48% growth in its cloud-computing revenue and guidance for up to $185 billion in capital expenditure this year, both well ahead of expectations. The message is clear: if investors want to enjoy the soaring sales, they have to put up with the surge in investment. Like Meta Platforms' Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is producing immediate AI results while also demanding faith in his huge spending plans.
A year ago, such a report would have been enough to send the entire technology sector soaring. Now investors are more discerning. Google's Gemini Enterprise product, which allows companies to run AI agents, is now available to more than eight million users at more than 2,800 companies in the four months since its launch. That's not good news for beaten-down software stocks, already struggling with the threat from automated tools.
But chip companies -- which have also been hit by the AI selloff in recent days -- and other hardware players should find plenty to cheer from Google's splurge, and the pressure it puts on cloud-computing rivals Microsoft and Amazon.com to match it. Concerns about ChatGPT-developer OpenAI's ability to meet its roughly $1 trillion spending commitments have been part of the reason for the recent AI gloom but it's hardly the only big spender in town. Google's chip partners such as Broadcom should find some relief, along with a wider range of networking, cooling, power, and infrastructure stocks.
The AI trade has transformed in the past six months as investors demand evidence of revenue growth. But with capex from big U.S. technology companies now widely forecast to surge beyond $600 billion this year, it's still worth looking for winners among the recipients of that spending.
-- Adam Clark
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Google's Alphabet Plans to Double Capital Spending This Year
Alphabet plans to double its spending on artificial intelligence this year, both to build the AI models themselves and the data centers it will need to train them. Revenue for 2025 crossed the $400 billion mark for the first time, rising 17% on gains in cloud computing and digital advertising.
-- It forecasts capital spending this year at $175 billion to $185 billion,
well above expectations and up from about $92 billion last year. That
spending is aimed at a currently insatiable demand for AI cloud
computing. Google Cloud revenue rose 48% in the fourth quarter, to $17.7
billion.
-- Google's fourth-quarter operating margins widened to 30.1% from 17.5% a
year ago. All of Alphabet's capex shows up on its income statement as
depreciation expenses, up 38% in 2025. CFO Anat Ashkenazi said that this
growth rate would accelerate, potentially weighing on Google Cloud's
operating margin.
-- Despite all the spending, CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google Cloud still
expects to be supply-constrained in 2026. Its backlog rose 55% since the
last quarter, to $240 billion. Quarterly results beat expectations with
earnings of $2.82 a share and revenue of $113.8 billion, up 18%.
-- Advertising also came in better than feared. Fourth-quarter search ad
revenue was up 17% from a year earlier, easily beating the Wall Street
consensus. But YouTube ad sales underperformed, only up 9%. Overall, ad
revenue rose 13.6%.
What's Next: Google launched its Gemini 3 chatbot last November and calls it a major milestone, with strong momentum. The company said the Gemini app has grown to over 750 million monthly active users, and search saw more usage than ever as AI drives an expansionary moment.
-- Adam Levine and Liz Moyer
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Trump-Xi Phone Call Indicates Detente Continues
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping connected by phone on Wednesday and both reported having a positive and friendly conversation. For Trump, the call comes ahead of his plans to meet Xi in China in April, amid ongoing trade negotiations. Some say the call signaled the detente is still going
-- Trump said on social media that the two discussed China buying oil and
gas from the U.S. and airplane engine deliveries. He said the call also
included China potentially buying more U.S. agricultural products,
increasing its soybean purchases to 20 million tons this season and 25
million tons next season.
-- China's readout, according to Chinese state media Xinhua News Agency, was
positive but didn't mention agricultural, oil, or other trade-related
commitments, or Trump's April visit. Xi said he was working to steer the
great ship of China-U.S. relations.
-- China's summary stressed that Taiwan is the most important issue in
China-U.S. relations, and urged the U.S. to handle arms sales to Taiwan
"with great prudence." Congress on Tuesday approved $1 billion for a
Taiwan Security Cooperation initiative to help the island with
semiconductors and self-defense.
-- Andy Rothman, head of research firm Sinology LLC, called the official
Chinese statement "fairly upbeat," noting the comments about Taiwan
"weren't aggressive." George Chen, partner at The Asia Group consultancy,
said the call's timing, after Xi talked to Russia's Vladimir Putin,
suggests Xi's desire to avoid misunderstanding.
What's Next: The call seemed to signal that the leaders are focused on maintaining a detente. Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer for KraneShares, said the increase in the number of U.S. CEOs visiting China lately could be an indication they are working on potential partnerships with Chinese companies.
-- Reshma Kapadia and Janet H. Cho
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Fed's Lisa Cook Says Inflation Progress Has Stalled
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook says progress on bringing down inflation appears to have stalled, stressing the importance of the central bank remaining focused on bringing down price growth. In prepared remarks for the Economic Club of Miami, she said she still sees risks tilted toward higher inflation.
-- Cook pointed out in the remarks that the Fed's preferred inflation gauge,
the personal consumption expenditures price index, rose 2.9% in December
from a year earlier. Core PCE inflation, excluding food and energy, was
up 3%. The stall is frustrating after significant disinflation, she said.
-- While Cook says there is an argument for being optimistic about the path
of inflation, until she sees stronger evidence that inflation is moving
sustainably back down to Fed's 2% target, interest-rate policy must be
focused on achieving that outcome. That's why she supported holding rates
steady last month.
-- Cook has remained a voting member at the Fed after both federal and
appeals courts have rejected President Trump's attempts to remove her
from office over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud. Supreme Court
Justices heard arguments last month and seem poised to once again reject
Trump's bid.
-- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, appearing in the House, said the
president has the right to interfere with the Fed's decision-making. "It
is his right...It is the right of everyone in here," Bessent said. He
believes in Fed independence but with accountability. The Fed declined to
comment.
What's Next: In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Trump said his new pick to succeed Fed Chair Jerome Powell in May -- former Fed official Kevin Warsh -- wouldn't have gotten the job if he wanted to raise interest rates. He said there's not much doubt that rates will be lowered.
-- Megan Leonhardt, Emily Russell, and Liz Moyer
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Cigna's Pharmacy-Benefits Manager to Change Business Practices
Cigna's Express Scripts, one of the biggest pharmacy-benefit managers, will be changing its business practices as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The result will potentially reduce consumers' out-of-pocket costs for drugs like insulin by up to $7 billion over 10 years.
-- The settlement resolves FTC's 2024 lawsuit accusing Express Scripts of
artificially inflating insulin drug prices by using "anticompetitive and
unfair" rebating practices and preventing patients from accessing
lower-priced products, ultimately shifting the cost of high insulin list
prices to patients.
-- All five FTC commissioners under the Biden administration supported
releasing a report that said major pharmacy-benefit managers including
Express Scripts, CVS Health's Caremark and UnitedHealth's Optum Rx
generated $7.3 billion in markups on specialty drugs dispensed by
affiliated pharmacies.
-- FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the Express Scripts settlement will end
business practices that kept drug prices high, and ultimately provide
meaningful financial relief to patients who depend on prescription drugs,
and for community pharmacies that were being squeezed.
-- The FTC said Express Scripts agreed to stop preferring high
wholesale-cost versions of drugs over identical low-cost versions,
improve the transparency of its business practices, delink drugmakers'
compensation from their list prices, and move its group purchasing
organization Ascent to the U.S. from Switzerland.
(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires
February 05, 2026 06:43 ET (11:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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