AI’s finally expensive enough to make Wall Street nervous

<figure> <img alt="A bear appears, surrounded by down arrows" data-caption="Working hard, or bear-ly working? | Cath Virginia" data-portal-copyright="Cath Virginia" data-has-syndication-rights="1" src="https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/STKS501_STOCKS_CVIRGINIA_A.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;crop=0,0,100,100" /> <figcaption> Working hard, or bear-ly working? | Cath Virginia </figcaption> </figure> <p class="wp-block-paragraph">It's earnings season, and investors got an unpleasant surprise from Google: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/google-quarterly-cloud-revenue-growth-beats-expectations-2026-07-22/">an increase on its spending estimate</a>, to as much as $205 billion - from the last quarter's projection of up to $190 billion. Even the lower end of Google's new projected range - $195 billion - is much more than the company had previously forecast as its <em>top end</em> spending. Now, look, I recognize that there's an impulse to say things like "What's $15 billion between friends?" but from an investor's perspective, Google has essentially said that it can't accurately forecast its costs, which is a scary thing. Plus, Google is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b02f972c-c764-4006-9377-42563d9d5530?syn-25a6b1a6=1">spending more money than it's making</a>. <em>And</em> Google …</p> <p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/972119/ai-stock-fall-google-capex">Read the full story at The Verge.</a></p>