Alphabet's heavy investment in AI infrastructure continues to drive elevated capital expenditures, with Q2 2026 capex reaching $44.9 billion—more than double the prior year—as the company expands data centers, servers including TPUs and GPUs, and networking capacity. Surging Google Cloud revenue growth, which accelerated to 82% year-over-year alongside a $514 billion backlog, reflects strong enterprise demand for AI services that outpaces supply, prompting repeated upward revisions to full-year 2026 guidance into the $195–205 billion range. This positions Q3 spending, to be detailed in the late-October earnings release, to remain at elevated levels amid competitive pressure from peers like Microsoft and Amazon. Free cash flow pressure and supply constraints add uncertainty around exact quarterly pacing.