New York, May 10, 2026, 08:03 (EDT)
Alphabet heads into the week still facing uncertainty over Google’s unresolved EU antitrust negotiations, leaving a cloud over a stock that’s climbed thanks to cloud momentum, surging AI interest, and its renewed rivalry with Nvidia for the top market cap spot. On Friday, EU regulators gave Google extra time to respond, after finding the company’s previous proposal lacking.
This is notable: Google’s stock has shed the uncertainty that dogged companies scrambling to define their AI story. Alphabet’s Class A shares finished at $400.80, a 0.7% gain on the day. That puts its market cap close to $4.86 trillion. Nvidia remains on top, valued around $5.27 trillion.
Plenty for investors to track this week: Google’s The Android Show lands on May 12. Just two days later, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan is set to speak at the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet and Communications Conference, Alphabet confirmed. Right after, Google I/O kicks off May 19-20, with the tech giant promising news on Gemini, Android and more AI updates.
Since Alphabet’s first-quarter report, the stock’s base case looks a lot different. Revenue came in at $109.9 billion, up 22%. Google Search and other revenue increased 19%. YouTube ad sales gained 11%. Google Cloud jumped 63% to $20.0 billion. Net income surged 81%, with diluted earnings per share landing at $5.11.
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s chief executive, told analysts enterprise AI offerings now stand as the “primary growth driver” for the cloud business, according to Reuters. Alphabet noted its cloud backlog surged, nearly doubling from the previous quarter to over $460 billion—evidence that signed customer deals, not just investor optimism, are taking center stage in the Google narrative. Reuters
Wall Street wants to see if that backlog actually starts boosting revenue—without squeezing margins in the process. Stephanie Link, Hightower Advisors’ chief investment strategist, described the move to Reuters as “early signs of better monetization.” LPL Financial’s Jeff Buchbinder pointed to a “meaningful acceleration” fueled by cloud and AI demand. Reuters
Anthropic stands out as a wild card. Reuters, referencing The Information, said the AI start-up has pledged $200 billion in spending with Google Cloud over five years—a sum that, per the report, might represent north of 40% of Google’s stated revenue backlog. Reuters noted it couldn’t independently corroborate those details; Anthropic wouldn’t comment, and Google pointed queries back to Anthropic.
The competitive landscape may be tight, yet it matters. Alphabet is pushing its custom tensor processing units — or TPUs, chips built for AI acceleration — as real contenders against Nvidia’s graphics processors in major AI projects. Google Cloud, meanwhile, is in a spending race against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Growth for Google Cloud has recently surged ahead of the bigger players, Amazon and Microsoft, Reuters noted.
The risk here isn’t minimal. The European Commission has accused Google of violating the Digital Markets Act, targeting major tech gatekeepers, and criticized the company’s response as “simply not strong enough.” According to Reuters, the DMA allows fines reaching as much as 10% of a firm’s worldwide yearly revenue. Reuters
Then there’s the spending bill. According to Reuters, Alphabet sold at least 3 billion euros in bonds last week, while bumping up its 2026 capex forecast to somewhere between $180 billion and $190 billion—a hefty range, with another sizable jump on deck for 2027. That sets up the bear case heading into the week: if investors decide the AI opportunity is real, but prohibitively costly, Google shares could face headwinds, even if product updates impress.
Alphabet’s standing as a top AI monetization play among megacaps is holding, at least for now. The real test hits in the next few days, when updates across Android, YouTube, and cloud land. Whether those hold up the bull case is the question—especially with Brussels still turning up the heat on Google’s main search business.
