Alphabet rallied 4% on Friday, closing at $314, as investors shrugged off a choppy start to February and focused on fresh upside catalysts — notably stronger Google Cloud performance and heavy investment in generative AI infrastructure. Why investors bumped GOOGL higher - Google has accelerated capital expenditures tied to generative AI, and management expects that spending to translate into substantial revenue over the 2026–2027 window: roughly $19–$23 billion in additional cloud revenue plus $5–$6 billion more in advertising. - Wall Street momentum helped too: TD Cowen issued a buy rating in February with a $365 price target, implying about 19% upside from Friday’s close (an illustrative $1,000 stake would be worth roughly $1,190 if the target is met). That bullish call comes even as the broader tech sell-off has erased nearly $1.4 trillion in market value. Waymo as the growth story TD Cowen highlighted Waymo as a key growth driver. Recent operational milestones underline that case: - Waymo completed 1.26 million trips in California in December, up from 1.02 million in September. - The service ended last year having quadrupled annual trips, delivering 15 million rides in a single year and topping 20 million lifetime rides. - Waymo now runs in six U.S. cities, handles roughly 400,000 paid trips per week, and recently launched in Miami — with plans to prepare for more than 20 additional cities this year. - Management’s longer-term target is to exceed one million paid rides per week by the end of 2026. Growing scale — and recent regulatory scrutiny around Tesla’s autonomy efforts — has left more room for Waymo to capture attention and market share in autonomous ride services. Why crypto traders should care For a crypto-focused audience, the move matters beyond equities: - Bigger Google Cloud revenue and AI-focused capex strengthen one of the major infrastructure providers that many crypto firms, exchanges and analytics platforms rely on for compute, node hosting and data services. - Intensified competition among hyperscalers (Google vs. AWS/Azure) could shape pricing and product options for blockchain workloads and on-chain analytics. - A healthier Alphabet stock and bullish sentiment around its growth engines can lift broader tech risk appetite, which often flows into crypto markets. Bottom line: stronger cloud momentum, aggressive AI spending and an accelerating Waymo rollout have combined to bolster Alphabet’s outlook and fuel recent gains — and those dynamics are relevant to crypto market participants who depend on cloud and AI infrastructure. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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