Google Cloud, the business under parent company Alphabet that provides enterprise AI solutions, had a blowout first quarter, with revenues topping $20 billion for the time, a 63% increase from the same period last year. However, investors on the company's earnings call expressed concern about the constraints surrounding the business and how Google decides to allocate cloud capacity. In the first quarter of 2026, the company said its cloud growth was driven by strong performance in the Google Cloud Platform, which grew at a higher rate than the Google Cloud division's overall revenue growth. (The Cloud division includes a variety of services like infrastructure, data analytics, AI/ML tools, and Google Workspace.) Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts on the Q1 2026 earnings call on Wednesday that this growth came from 'strong demand' for Gemini Enterprise and its AI solutions, and pointed to an increased demand for infrastructure, including TPU hardware and data centers. AI solutions were the largest driver of cloud growth, with products built on Google's genAI models growing nearly 800% year-over-year. Google Gemini Enterprise also grew 40% quarter-over-quarter, the company said, and AI token growth via its API grew to 16 billion tokens per minute, up from 10 billion in the fourth quarter....

The maker of the Claude AI assistant has received multiple preemptive offers to raise fresh capital of around $50 billion at a valuation in the $850 billion to $900 billion range, according to half a dozen sources familiar with the matter. Bloomberg and Business Insider reported earlier this month that Anthropic received multiple preemptive bids at an $800 billion valuation, but at that time, the company had not yet committed to a fundraise. Sources say, however, that Anthropic is finding it difficult to resist the pressure to secure more funding in what could be its final round of private fundraising before a potential IPO. The company is expected to make a definitive decision on the round and its valuation at a board meeting in May, one person told TechCrunch. The round is expected to total $40 billion to $50 billion, according to people familiar with the company. But investor demand appears to be much higher given the company's rapid growth, which shows no sign of slowing. Investors are clamoring to get into the round. One institutional investor prepared to commit as much as $5 billion has yet to secure a meeting with Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao, according to a source....

Google has added another 25 million paid subscriptions to its services over the past quarter, parent company Alphabet announced during its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. The company said it now has 350 million paid subscriptions across its services, up from 325 million in Q4 2025, with YouTube and Google One ' its cloud storage and subscription service ' plans driving the recent growth. The earnings report didn't highlight the number of Gemini subscribers or its monthly active users. But access to advanced Gemini features is now bundled in with those Google One plans, which are growing. The lack of solid numbers may suggest that the Gemini chatbot still has more than 750 million users, the same benchmark reported in the prior quarter. Google pointed to the growth of Gemini in the key enterprise market, noting a 40% quarter-over-quarter increase in paid monthly active users. It did not offer a solid number here, either. As Google pushes ad-free viewing as part of its YouTube Premium subscription plan, the video service has seen a decline in ad revenue that has worried investors. Per CNBC, Wall Street expected Alphabet to bring in $9.99 billion in YouTube ad revenue this quarter, but it pulled in $9.88 billion. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had warned analysts last quarter that investors should evaluate YouTube's business going forward based on a combination of ads and subscriptions: When users switch to a YouTube subscription plan, it has a negative impact on ad revenue....

Amazon was one of several tech giants that on Wednesday beat Wall Street's first-quarter earnings expectations, offering more financial evidence that the AI boom continues to reward companies that supply the picks and shovels. Amazon's cloud business is the latest example. Amazon Web Services, buoyed by its role in fueling the AI boom, saw its net sales increase 28% year-over-year, climbing to $37.6 billion, the company said Wednesday. It was the fastest growth rate for AWS in 15 quarters, Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy said during the company's earnings call. 'It's very unusual for business to grow this fast on a base this large. The last time we saw growth at this clip, AWS was roughly half the size,' Jassy said. 'We've never seen a technology grow as rapidly as AI. Amazon is already a leader, and companies continue to choose AWS for AI.' Jassy compared the business unit's growth to the aughts. 'To put our growth in perspective, three years after AWS launched, it had a $58 million revenue run rate. [During] the first three years of this AI wave, AWS's AI revenue run rate is over $15 billion ' nearly 260 times larger.'...