Google Plans to Double Spending Amid A.I. Race
Nytimes reports that after early stumbles in artificial intelligence, Google says its Gemini system has leapfrogged rivals, boosting YouTube viewership and increasing search traffic. Those businesses lifted sales at Alphabet to $113.8 billion in the quarter that ended in December, and profits jumped 30 percent to $34.5 billion.
The company said it will double capital spending this year to $175 billion to $185 billion to build A.I. data centers across the country, after spending just over $90 billion on such projects last year. Alphabet also said its annual revenue last year had eclipsed $400 billion for the first time.
Gemini helped Google Cloud and YouTube: cloud sales rose 48 percent to $17.7 billion and YouTube sales increased 9 percent to $11.4 billion, while Google Search sales rose 17 percent to $63 billion and accounted for more than half of the company’s revenue.