Google's Future Commitments Hit $811 Billion, Up $500B

Google's contracted future spending commitments jumped by almost $500 billion in three months, reaching $811 billion at the end of June, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

The company disclosed the obligations in a quarterly filing, separate from Alphabet's capital expenditure budget, the report said.

Alphabet said Wednesday that it expects capital expenditures of $195 billion to $205 billion this year.

The $811 billion figure covers purchases under supply agreements and open purchase orders. They include chips, data centers, electricity, and content licenses. Bloomberg reported the leap reflected Alphabet's push to secure resources for its AI infrastructure.

During Alphabet's second-quarter earnings call, the company raised its 2026 capex forecast from $180 billion to $190 billion to the new range of $195 billion to $205 billion. Management said the increase came from faster deployment of computing capacity, with third-party capacity temporarily supplementing Google's infrastructure.

Asked about returns on additional computing investment in 2027, CEO Sundar Pichai pointed to long-term customer agreements and renewals, citing continuing demand.

Pichai said that during the earnings call.

Reuters reported that Alphabet recorded its first cash burn on record, burning $5.9 billion in the second quarter. The company's AI spending drove the cash burn. Its cloud unit, which rents out AI computing power, delivered record growth of 82%, Reuters added.

A separate report on July 10 said the five U.S. companies spending the most on AI data centers doubled their debt load over the past five years. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle added about $350 billion to their debt obligations.

Investors will be watching next week's earnings reports from Microsoft and Meta, along with Amazon to see how the AI-related payoffs compare to the outlays, the report said.