Google was always the company that simply had the money. Search has printed profits for years, the balance sheet is a fortress. And yet Alphabet is now selling stock to fund its AI buildout — a record sum of around 85 billion dollars.
The numbers
It started at 80 billion, then got bumped up: roughly 45 billion right away, another 40 billion or so next quarter. Included is a 10-billion investment from Berkshire Hathaway — Warren Buffett’s shop, not exactly famous for betting on AI. The money is headed into compute infrastructure: data centers, chips, the systems behind Gemini. Google has raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to as much as 190 billion dollars.
Strength or weakness?
The stock is under pressure — four straight weeks of losses, the longest slump in over a year. At first glance, raising capital during a stretch like that looks nervous. At second glance, it shows just how capital-intensive the frontier race has become. Google does report progress — cost per Gemini response is down 78 percent since 2025, AI Overviews reaches 2.5 billion monthly users, AI Mode over a billion. But reach and efficiency alone aren’t enough. You have to build the compute first.
My take
When even Google has to raise fresh capital, that tells you a lot about the whole field. The models are one thing — the power bill, the chips, and the buildings are another. That’s where the race gets decided, not just on the benchmarks.
For Anthropic it’s a double-edged picture. On one hand, Google is an important compute partner and investor in Claude. On the other, Gemini is the direct rival. When Google pours tens of billions into infrastructure, the Claude ecosystem benefits indirectly too — and the competition gets tougher. Both at once. That’s where we are right now.
Sources: TechCrunch, CNBC