Alphabet Shares Jump 1.7% on Launch of Advanced AI Chips and Major Cloud Partnerships

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) saw its shares climb 1.7% following announcements at its Cloud Next '26 conference. The company introduced new Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) aimed squarely at accelerating AI workloads.

The eighth-generation TPUs include the TPU 8t chip focused on training neural networks. This chip can scale up to 9,600 units within a single superpod, boasting two petabytes of shared memory and delivering a processing boost roughly three times that of the previous iteration. Alongside it, the TPU 8i targets inference tasks, connecting 1,152 chips with enhanced on-chip SRAM to handle AI agents requiring fast, low-latency responses.

Beyond hardware, Alphabet revealed a $750 million fund to support its extensive partner network of around 120,000 members. This initiative provides resources for AI pilot programs, prototype development, building agentic AI solutions, and training across consulting, system integration, and software firms.

Usage stats point to rapid AI adoption: Alphabet's models now process over 16 billion tokens per minute through direct customer APIs, up from 10 billion just last quarter. Close to three-quarters of Google Cloud customers currently employ the company's AI tools, with 330 processing over a trillion tokens annually.

Partnership expansions featured the extended deal with Thinking Machines Lab, which leverages A4X Max virtual machines equipped with NVIDIA GB300 GPUs. Initial results indicate doubling of training and inference speeds compared to their previous GPU setups.

Another highlight was the debut of the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, which aims to streamline AI agent creation and governance within businesses. Alphabet noted a 40% quarter-over-quarter hike in paid monthly active users for Gemini Enterprise in Q1.

Inside Alphabet's own operations, AI is making deep inroads: about 75% of new code released is AI-generated and then reviewed by human engineers, marking a surge from 50% in late 2025.

Alphabet's fresh hardware offerings and ecosystem investments underscore its ongoing drive to stake a claim in the AI infrastructure market, where compute power and scalable solutions are in fierce demand. The company's AI momentum appears poised to influence its cloud strategy and customer engagement throughout 2026.