New York, May 19, 2026, 05:04 EDT
Alphabet shares looked set to open higher Tuesday after Google and Blackstone announced a new U.S. AI cloud deal. Investors had another reason to buy a stock already close to records. The Class A shares finished Monday at $396.94, with a market cap of about $4.81 trillion. Google Finance quoted the stock at $401.09 before the open.
Timing is key. May 19 falls on a regular trading day for U.S. markets, but Nasdaq’s main session wasn’t open at the dateline. Pre-market on Nasdaq runs 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Eastern, with regular hours from 9:30 to 4:00 Eastern. The exchange lists Memorial Day, May 25, as its next scheduled market holiday in the 2026 calendar.
Stocks have been jumpy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.5% on Monday and the S&P 500 dipped 0.1% as traders weighed higher oil prices and the Iran war, swinging between risk and playing it safe. Alphabet’s new step in AI hits this market, where investors still look for AI growth but are sharper about costs, power and timing.
Google and Blackstone said they’re launching a new venture to provide data-center capacity and access to Google’s Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs. These are Google’s custom chips made for training and running AI models. Blackstone is putting in $5 billion in equity to support 500 megawatts of data-center capacity expected online in 2027. The new company plans to sell compute-as-a-service, so customers can rent computing power instead of owning and running their own hardware.
Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said the venture “helps meet growing demand for TPUs.” Brittain Ladd, an AI and supply-chain consultant at Chang Robotics, called it “a high-quality bet on sustainable growth in AI infrastructure.” That’s the optimistic view for Alphabet: show its chips aren’t just for its own use, but a product Wall Street can price. Business Insider
Google made the announcement as Google I/O kicked off, its yearly developer conference. The company’s schedule shows a main keynote at 10 a.m. Pacific and a developer keynote set for 1:30 p.m. Investors are waiting to see how much Google will integrate Gemini, the AI model family, into Search, Android, Chrome, and cloud products.
Alphabet shares have been moving higher with backing from earnings. The company last month posted Q1 revenue up 22% at $109.9 billion, with Google Cloud revenue up 63% to $20.0 billion, and EPS up 82% to $5.11. Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said AI spending is “lighting up every part of the business.” Q4 Capital
Peer comparisons are unusually plain here. Google’s focus on chips puts it nearer to Nvidia, which still dominates much of AI computing. Its cloud business has it competing with Amazon and Microsoft. Reuters said Alphabet’s shares have gained lately as investors bet Google Cloud and homegrown chips are finally turning steep AI costs into real business.
Google Cloud is still smaller than Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud units. Analysts say it is picking up new workloads as some customers want more than one provider. Lee Sustar at Forrester said Google is “capturing new workloads,” boosted by its data, analytics and AI tools. Reuters
Costs could hit before the returns. Alphabet has increased its yearly capex plans to between $180 billion and $190 billion, focused on items like data centers and chips. Reuters said Big Tech’s AI infrastructure spending could pass $700 billion in 2026. If demand drops, power is hard to get, or customers stick with Nvidia options, there’s not much cushion in the valuation for any letdown.
Traders are watching three things for now: if Alphabet hangs on to its pre-market move, if Google I/O brings sharper signals on making money from AI in Search and cloud, and if Nvidia earnings on May 20 reset AI trade expectations. A good week might push Alphabet toward $5 trillion. A weak showing could bring the spending debate back to the front.
