Alphabet’s GOOGL Google Cloud business is rapidly becoming one of the most important drivers of unlocking future growth, profitability and shareholder value. The first-quarter 2026 results highlighted a significant acceleration in Google Cloud’s business, demonstrating that Alphabet's years of investments in AI infrastructure, custom silicon and enterprise software are beginning to translate into substantial financial returns.
Google Cloud delivered one of the strongest quarters in its history, with revenues surging 63% year over year to $20 billion. The segment's operating income nearly tripled to $6.6 billion, while operating margin expanded sharply from 17.8% to 32.9%. Importantly, cloud growth significantly outpaced Alphabet's overall revenue growth of 22%, highlighting Cloud's increasing importance within the company's portfolio. Google Cloud now accounts for roughly 18% of Alphabet's total revenue, up from about 14% a year ago.
Management emphasized that enterprise AI solutions became Google’s primary cloud growth driver for the first time. Revenue from products built on Google’s generative AI models grew nearly 800% year over year, underscoring the growing demand for Gemini-powered enterprise applications. Perhaps the most striking data point from the reported quarter results was Google Cloud’s backlog, which nearly doubled sequentially to more than $460 billion. Alphabet disclosed that the backlog reached approximately $462 billion at quarter-end, driven by strong demand for enterprise AI offerings and new Tensor Processing Units (TPU)-related agreements. More than half of this backlog is expected to convert into revenues over the next 24 months. This provides investors with significant visibility into future growth and suggests that demand continues to exceed available capacity.
A major reason behind Cloud's momentum is Alphabet’s differentiated “full-stack" AI approach. Unlike many competitors, GOOGL controls nearly every layer of the AI stack, from custom AI chips and networking infrastructure to foundation models and enterprise applications. CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted on the first quarter call that Alphabet is the only major provider offering first-party solutions across the entire enterprise AI stack. Major innovations announced at Google Cloud Next 2026, including the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform for building and managing AI agents, the Agentic Data Cloud, as well as eighth-generation TPU chips optimized for both AI training and inference workloads.
TPU Monetization Opens a New Growth Opportunity for GOOGL
One of the most interesting developments for investors is Alphabet’s decision to monetize its custom TPUs beyond its own cloud platform. Historically, TPUs were primarily used internally to power Google services and cloud offerings. However, management announced plans to begin delivering TPUs directly to select customers in their own data centers. These customers include AI labs, capital markets firms and high-performance computing organizations seeking specialized AI infrastructure. This strategy could meaningfully expand Google's addressable market.
Supporting this opportunity, Blackstone recently announced a joint venture with Google to create a new TPU cloud. Blackstone is committing an initial $5 billion of equity capital to support approximately 500 megawatts of AI capacity expected to come online in 2027, while Google will provide TPUs, software and related services.
The partnership demonstrates growing external demand for Alphabet’s custom AI hardware and creates another avenue for monetizing technologies that were previously used primarily within Alphabet’s ecosystem.
GOOGL Faces Tough Competition in Cloud Domain
Alphabet is facing stiff competition from the likes of Microsoft MSFT and Amazon AMZN. According to Synergy Research Group’s first-quarter 2026 data, Amazon maintained a strong lead in the market, though Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google continued to achieve substantially higher growth rates. Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet’s market share were roughly 28%, 21% and 14%, respectively.
Amazon generates substantial profits from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where first-quarter 2026 sales increased 28% year over year to $37.6 billion and operating income rose to $14.2 billion from $11.5 billion. AWS now has an annualized revenue run rate of $150 billion, adding $2 billion sequentially, the largest fourth-quarter to first-quarter increase in AWS history.
Microsoft capitalizes on AI business momentum and Copilot adoption alongside accelerating Azure cloud infrastructure expansion. Strong Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud demand has been propelling Productivity and Business Processes revenue growth. Azure growth guidance projects fourth quarter fiscal 2026 growth of 39-40% at constant currency, suggesting demand saturation, with customer demand exceeding available capacity.
GOOGL’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Alphabet shares have jumped 24.7% year to date, outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s rise of 20.5%.
GOOGL Stock Outperforms Sector
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The GOOGL stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 10.31X compared with the broader sector’s 6.88X. Alphabet has a Value Score of D.
GOOGL Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $14.29 per share, up 22.7% over the past 30 days, suggesting 32.2% growth from 2025’s reported figure.
Alphabet Inc. Price and Consensus
Alphabet Inc. price-consensus-chart | Alphabet Inc. Quote
Alphabet currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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