Alphabet (GOOGL.US) AI arms race “bets” on acceleration! Unfulfilled procurement commitments soared to US$811 billion, and computing power expansion entered a new stage

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the latest regulatory documents disclosed by Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.US, GOOG.US) show that by the end of June this year, the company's future procurement commitments reached 811 billion US dollars, an increase of nearly 500 billion US dollars over the end of March this year, highlighting that the company is locking down the resources needed for AI infrastructure at an unprecedented speed.

This procurement commitment is independent of Alphabet's capital expenditure budget and mainly includes expenses already promised to be paid under supply agreements and uncompleted purchase orders. Of this, approximately $2007 billion will expire within one year, which is a short-term procurement commitment.

Alphabet said that these procurement commitments cover various fields such as chips, data centers, power supply, inventory, and content licensing, reflecting that the company is continuing to step up AI infrastructure construction and target key resources ahead of time to support the rapid expansion of the AI business.

This data also further shows that the AI infrastructure competition among global tech giants continues to heat up.

Alphabet said on Wednesday that it expects capital expenditure to reach US$195 billion to US$205 billion in 2026, and will continue to invest in AI computing power infrastructure on a large scale to cope with fierce competition from competitors such as Microsoft (MSFT.US), Meta Platforms (META.US), and Amazon (AMZN.US) in the field of artificial intelligence and continue to expand AI computing capabilities.