Google just posted the most money it has ever made in a single quarter — and still managed to burn more cash than it brought in.
Alphabet reported $119.8 billion in Q2 revenue, up 24 percent from a year ago. But free cash flow went negative $5.9 billion, the first red quarter since the company went public in 2004. The reason is an AI spending binge so voracious that capital expenditures now swallow 37.5 cents of every dollar Google collects — the highest share in the company's history.
The spending isn't slowing down. Alphabet dropped $44.9 billion on datacenters, servers, and networking gear in Q2 alone. Over the past twelve months, capex totaled $132.4 billion, a 98 percent increase. Management just raised 2026 spending guidance to between $195 billion and $205 billion — the second hike in three months — and CFO Anat Ashkenazi told analysts that 2027 spending would climb