Alphabet Quarterly Earnings Lifted by Cloud and AI

Investors have been watching closely to see whether the billions of dollars Google is pouring into datacenters and artificial intelligence hosted in the cloud are paying off for the Silicon Valley tech giant. Manaure Quintero / AFP
Investors have been watching closely to see whether the billions of dollars Google is pouring into datacenters and artificial intelligence hosted in the cloud are paying off for the Silicon Valley tech giant. Manaure Quintero / AFP
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Alphabet Quarterly Earnings Lifted by Cloud and AI

Investors have been watching closely to see whether the billions of dollars Google is pouring into datacenters and artificial intelligence hosted in the cloud are paying off for the Silicon Valley tech giant. Manaure Quintero / AFP
Investors have been watching closely to see whether the billions of dollars Google is pouring into datacenters and artificial intelligence hosted in the cloud are paying off for the Silicon Valley tech giant. Manaure Quintero / AFP

Google parent Alphabet on Thursday reported profit of $34.5 billion in the recently ended quarter, powered by its cloud computing and artificial intelligence operations.

Overall revenue at Alphabet grew 12 percent to $90.2 billion compared to the same period a year earlier, while revenue for the cloud unit grew 28 percent to $12.3 billion, according to the tech giant, AFP reported.

Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai said the strong quarterly results reflect healthy growth and momentum across the business.

"Underpinning this growth is our unique full stack approach to AI," Pichai said in an earnings release.

He touted the latest Gemini software as Alphabet's most intelligent AI model and an "extraordinary foundation" for the Silicon Valley company's innovation.

Alphabet shares were up more than three percent in after-market trades that followed the release of the earnings figures.

"Cloud grew rapidly with significant demand for our solutions," Pichai said of Alphabet's services and tools hosted at data centers.

Investors have been watching closely to see whether the tech giant may be pouring too much money into artificial intelligence.

"Cloud's growth indicates that Google AI product mix continues to thrive despite heightened competition," said Emarketer principal analyst Yory Wurmser.

Google and rivals are spending billions of dollars on data centers and more for AI, while the rise of lower-cost model DeepSeek from China raises questions about how much needs to be spent.

Antitrust battles

Meanwhile the online ad business that churns out the cash Google invests in its future could be neutered due to a defeat in a US antitrust case.

US government attorneys are urging a federal judge to make Google spin off its Chrome browser, arguing artificial intelligence is poised to ramp up the company's online search dominance.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is arguing its position before District Judge Amit Mehta, who is considering "remedies" after making a landmark decision last year that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in online search.

"Nothing less than the future of the internet is at stake here," Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater said prior to the start of the hearings this week in Washington.

"If Google's conduct is not remedied, it will control much of the internet for the next decade and not just in internet search, but in new technologies like artificial intelligence."

Google countered in the case that the United States has gone way beyond the scope of the suit by recommending a spinoff of its widely used Chrome, and holding open the option to force a sale of its Android mobile operating system.

The legal case focused on Google's agreements with partners such as Apple and Samsung to distribute its search tools, noted Google president of global affairs Kent Walker.

"The DOJ chose to push a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America's global technology leadership," Walker wrote in a blog post.

In another legal battle, a different US judge ruled this month that Google wielded monopoly power in the online ad technology market in a legal blow that could rattle the tech giant's revenue engine.

The federal government and more than a dozen US states filed the antitrust suit against Google, accusing it of acting illegally to dominate major sectors of digital advertising.

District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google built an illegal monopoly over ad software and tools used by publishers.

"Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising," Brinkema said in her ruling.

Online advertising is the driving engine of Google's fortune and pays for widely used online services like Maps, Gmail, and search offered free.

Combined, the courtroom defeats have the potential to leave Google split up and its influence curbed.

Google said it is appealing both rulings.



Huawei Launches 1st Laptops Using Home-grown Harmony Operating System

Huawei Atlas 800 inference server is displayed at InnoEX Fair, in Hong Kong, China April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
Huawei Atlas 800 inference server is displayed at InnoEX Fair, in Hong Kong, China April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
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Huawei Launches 1st Laptops Using Home-grown Harmony Operating System

Huawei Atlas 800 inference server is displayed at InnoEX Fair, in Hong Kong, China April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo
Huawei Atlas 800 inference server is displayed at InnoEX Fair, in Hong Kong, China April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

Huawei launched two new laptop models on Monday, the first sold with its own Harmony operating system, in a bid to take on well-established Western Big Tech rivals even as the United States seeks to limit its access to crucial chips.

Despite its emergence as the world's leading producer of tech hardware, China's development of computer operating systems has lagged behind Microsoft (MSFT.O), and Apple (AAPL.O), whose Windows and macOS have cornered the global market for decades.

The new MateBook Fold and MateBook Pro both run on HarmonyOS 5, the latest version of an operating system Huawei Technologies began developing in 2015 and introduced five years later on its Mate series smartphones, Reuters reported.

It began developing the laptop prototypes in 2021.

"The Harmony laptop gives the world a new choice," Yu Chengdong, head of Huawei's consumer business group, said during a livestreamed launch event. "We kept on doing the hard things but the right things."

The base model of the MateBook Fold, which does not have a physical keyboard and offers an 18-inch OLED double screen when fully extended, will sell for 23,999 yuan ($3,328).

The MateBook Pro model, which uses a conventional laptop keyboard, is priced from 7,999 yuan.

Washington began restricting Huawei's access to U.S. technology in 2019 over national security concerns, pushing the company to build its own capacity to develop and produce chips and operating systems.

Huawei said the HarmonyOS for computers currently offers over 150 applications, including WPS Office from Kingsoft (3888.HK), - an alternative to Microsoft's Office - and photo editing app Meitu (1357.HK), Xiu Xiu.

By the end of 2024, over 7.2 million individual developers were developing apps for HarmonyOS, which was installed on over a billion devices, including smartphones and TVs, according to Huawei's latest annual report.

Huawei did not disclose which processing chip it had used to power the newly-launched laptops. But it said the computers' relatively high prices were the result of the cost of new manufacturing technology for the chipset.