Google justifies its massive AI spending with a booming cloud business

TechCrunch · 2 months ago · 38 ● 19 sources

Google's cloud business revenue surged 82% year-over-year to $24.8 billion in the latest quarter, driven largely by enterprise AI adoption, demonstrating returns on the company's substantial AI infrastructure spending. The company reported a backlog of $514 billion in cloud contracting work and profit jumped from $28.1 billion to $112.1 billion compared to the prior year. These results suggest Google's multibillion-dollar AI investments are beginning to generate significant revenue and profitability, though the company continues heavy capital spending of $180–190 billion annually for data centers and chips.