Alphabet: The AI Play You’re Probably Ignoring

Right. Let’s talk Alphabet. Everyone’s chasing the shiny new AI darlings, throwing money at anything that sounds futuristic. And honestly? It’s a bit exhausting. Me? I’m looking at the boring stuff. The companies that are actually building things, not just talking about them. And Alphabet? They’re quietly hoovering up the future, one algorithm at a time. It’s almost… unsettling. Like watching someone win at chess without even trying.

Gemini. That’s the name. Their large language model. It’s consistently good, apparently. I mean, they all are, aren’t they? It’s become the baseline. But what Alphabet does is embed it. Everywhere. Cloud, search… it’s like they’re injecting intelligence into the bloodstream of the internet. And let’s be real, search is still king. They own the gateway, don’t they? Chrome, Android… over 70% market share. It’s not exactly a fair fight. And then there’s the Apple deal. They pay Alphabet to be the default search engine. Clever, really. It’s like a protection racket, but legal. And now Apple Intelligence is jumping on the Gemini bandwagon. Smooth move.

An emerging AI chip leader

Okay, the chips. This is where it gets interesting. They’ve been quietly building these custom AI chips – Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs – for over a decade. A decade! While everyone else was obsessed with GPUs, they were tinkering away in a lab. It’s a bit like that eccentric aunt who collects bottle caps and then turns out to be a millionaire. They’re cheaper than Nvidia’s chips, consume less energy… it’s a structural cost advantage, they call it. I call it smart. They’re pouring a ridiculous amount of money – $175 to $185 billion this year – into data center infrastructure. It’s obscene, really. But effective. They can train models faster, cheaper… and then dominate the market. It’s a vicious cycle, and I’m here for it.

And now they’re letting other companies use these TPUs. Of course they are. Morgan Stanley estimates they could generate $13 billion in revenue for every 500,000 TPUs deployed. It’s a cash cow, basically. They’re even talking to these “neocloud” companies – Fluidstack, apparently – to expand the reach. It’s all very… calculated. I suspect they have a five-year plan, a ten-year plan, a plan for world domination. And honestly? I wouldn’t bet against them.

So, here’s the thing. Everyone’s looking for the next big thing. The flashy startup, the revolutionary technology. But sometimes, the smartest play is the boring one. The company that’s already built the infrastructure, that controls the gateway, that has the resources to dominate. Alphabet is that company. They have both the brains and the brawn. And that, my friends, is a dangerous combination. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

2026-02-27 09:02

An emerging AI chip leader

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