Alphabet posted its second-quarter earnings after Wednesday's closing bell, beating on the headline numbers and giving a higher forecast for this year's capital expenditures. But some analysts say the debate over the future of Google's search empire is still unsettled.

Asian shares are lower after Wall Street inched to more records as gains for Alphabet and artificial-intelligence stocks offset a steep tumble for EV-maker Tesla

U.S. stock index futures were mixed on Thursday as investors assessed earnings from Alphabet and Tesla while focusing on progress in trade deals between the U.S. and its top partners.

Alphabet on Wednesday cited massive demand for its cloud computing services as it hiked its capital spending plans for the year to about $85 billion and predicted a further increase next year. The sea

The company increased that figure on Wednesday to $85 billion, saying it was raising it due to “strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services.” The company expects to further increase capital expenditures in 2026, Alphabet finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said on an earnings call.

The hyperscaler wars are still raging despite concern earlier this year that cloud network players, including Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, may cut capital spending on AI infrastructure. Concerns that surging spending to refresh and build out cloud networks accelerated when China’s DeepSeek chatbot launched with a shockingly low $6 million development cost,