Google to Spend $75 Billion on AI Infrastructure Despite Tariff Tensions
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) is moving ahead with its plan to invest $75 billion in data center infrastructure, even as U.S. tariff policy shifts create uncertainty for hardware imports.
Speaking at the Google Cloud Next Conference 2025 on Wednesday, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company's 2025 capital expenditure will focus on expanding its data centers and server capacity to support artificial intelligence compute needs and its cloud business. This will support our customers across the board, he noted.
Pichai also introduced Google's Cloud Wide Area Network, or Cloud WAN, which will soon be available to global enterprise customers. He said the system leverages Google's global network, offering up to 40% faster application performance while cutting ownership costs by as much as 40%.
The move follows a fourth-quarter 2024 capex outlay of $14 billion, mainly allocated to infrastructure, including servers and data centers supporting Google Services, Cloud, and DeepMind. Alphabet's CFO Anat Ashkenazi shared those figures in February.
Despite rising hardware costs due to trade policy, Alphabet joins Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in continuing large-scale infrastructure investments through 2025. Google Cloud executive Sachin Gupta told Reuters that while tariffs could raise input costs, customer demand still supports the expansion.
On the same day, President Trump announced a temporary easing of tariffs on dozens of countries, while tightening trade measures targeting China.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
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