Text/Yang Jianyong

In 2025, Alphabet (Google's parent company, widely recognized by the Google brand) posted a record revenue of $402.8 billion (approximately RMB 2.8 trillion), marking a 15% year-on-year increase. Its net profit soared to $132.1 billion (approximately RMB 910 billion), up 32% year-on-year, exceeding both revenue and profit forecasts.

Google Cloud Business Skyrockets, Annual Revenue Tops $70 Billion

In the era of large language models, Google Cloud's performance has drawn considerable attention. It not only serves as a key growth driver for Google's overall performance but also underpins its market competitiveness.

As the world's third-largest cloud service provider, Google Cloud continues to experience rapid growth. In Q4 2025, its revenue reached $17.66 billion, a 48% year-on-year increase, making it the fastest-growing among the top three global cloud service providers.

Fueled by AI demand, Google Cloud's total revenue for 2025 exceeded $70 billion (approximately RMB 490 billion), with a backlog of $240 billion, more than doubling from the previous year. This underscores the strong demand for enterprise AI infrastructure and AI solutions.

Investments in AI infrastructure are comprehensively propelling Google's revenue growth, particularly the robust expansion of Google Cloud. Consequently, Google plans to continue increasing spending to enhance its competitiveness in the AI market and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Google Goes All-In on AI, Spending Surges, Positioned to Challenge Nvidia’s Market Cap Dominance

In 2026, Google's spending is projected to reach $175-185 billion, doubling from $91.45 billion in 2025, primarily allocated to AI infrastructure such as servers, data centers, and network equipment.

Significant investments in AI have established Google as the most talked-about AI company in the market. After its market cap surpassed the $4 trillion mark, discussions have arisen about whether it can overtake Nvidia to become the world's most valuable company. In my view, from the Gemini large model to TPU chips and Google Cloud, Google is well-positioned to emerge as the new global AI leader.

Currently, three companies boast market caps exceeding $4 trillion: Nvidia at $4.23 trillion, Apple at $4.06 trillion, and Google at $4.02 trillion, with Google trailing Nvidia by just $210 billion (less than 5%).

Among these three, while Apple leads the global smartphone market with the iPhone, securing the top sales position for three consecutive years, it faces challenges in AI integration. Nvidia commands over 90% of the GPU market share but confronts fierce competition from Google, Broadcom, and others, while navigating the complexities of the AI bubble.

Google, through deep AI integration, embeds technologies from the Gemini model to TPU chips across its full-stack products, driving rapid growth in its cloud business. As large model applications advance, its global market share is expected to climb further.

Google's Gemini large model service, after continuous refinement, has evolved to Gemini 3, with the Gemini 3 Pro model achieving unprecedented heights in multimodal understanding and reasoning, offering unparalleled depth and insight.

With Google's robust product ecosystem, the integration of Gemini 3 has exerted pressure on OpenAI across multiple dimensions since its launch.

Global AI Chip Landscape Transforms as Google's TPU Chips Rival Nvidia

Critically, Google's TPU chips boast formidable technical capabilities, positioning them as one of Nvidia's most formidable GPU competitors. For years, training large models has hinged on Nvidia's high-performance chips.

However, Google's TPU, specifically designed for AI, is slated for external sale, sending ripples through the global semiconductor industry. Sources indicate that Anthropic, Meta, and others will acquire TPU chips to bolster their computational infrastructure for training AI large models, posing a significant threat to Nvidia.

Google's decision to sell TPUs externally signals that tech giants aim to reduce their reliance on Nvidia and diversify their chip supply, altering the previously Nvidia-dominated landscape.

In Conclusion

Google has long been a technology-driven innovator, particularly aggressive in AI, with nearly $200 billion in investments placing it at the forefront of AI, cloud computing, autonomous driving, and other cutting-edge technologies.

Despite trailing Amazon and Microsoft in cloud market share, Google's relentless technological investments, especially in large models, have bolstered its competitiveness, offering opportunities to capture more market share. This suggests that AI large models are reshaping the search giant, which aims to ride the AI wave to compete for the global market cap crown.

Yang Jianyong, a Forbes China contributor, expresses personal views only. He is committed to in-depth analysis of cutting-edge technologies such as AI large models, artificial intelligence, IoT, cloud computing, and smart hardware.