On April 29, Google, a part of Alphabet, disclosed its earnings report for the first quarter of 2026, showcasing substantial growth within its Google Cloud services. According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s overall revenue surged by 22%, reaching $109.9 billion in Q1, primarily due to heightened enterprise demand for AI products, cloud infrastructure, and generative AI services.
Google Cloud achieved a remarkable milestone by exceeding the $20 billion revenue threshold for the first time, with an impressive 63% revenue increase, underscoring the rising momentum of AI-driven cloud adoption across various sectors. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, remarked that 2026 has commenced on an excellent note.
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Pichai further indicated that the robust quarter was fuelled by AI-enhanced features within Google Search, with search revenue climbing by 19%. Additionally, the company’s backlog nearly doubled, exceeding $460 billion.
Pichai stated that these remarkable results stem from the company’s unique, comprehensive strategy. He mentioned that their proprietary models, such as Gemini, are now processing over 16 billion tokens per minute through direct API usage by clients, marking a 60% increase from the previous quarter. He expressed enthusiasm regarding how their AI investments are creating significant value for users, clients, and the business.
The growth of Google’s Gemini app was a key factor in this success, with paid subscriptions reaching 350 million across its various services. Gemini Enterprise saw a 40% increase in paid active users from the previous quarter, indicating strong adoption rates among enterprises.
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In addition, Waymo, Google’s self-driving car initiative, completed over 500,000 fully autonomous rides each week.
Google also initiated the sale of its AI chips, known as TPUs (Tensor Processing Units), directly to select customers for the first time, aimed at managing AI workloads and machine learning tasks. Historically, Google had only used TPUs internally for projects like the Gemini AI model. However, the company anticipates generating a modest amount of revenue from TPU sales this year.
Pichai is optimistic that direct TPU sales could enable Google to tap into a significantly larger AI hardware market. Nevertheless, Google continues to encounter constraints concerning computing power and chip availability due to the soaring demand for AI technologies.