Google is increasing investments in AI. CEO says the risk is underinvesting versus over investing. Capex for Q2 for Alphabet as a whole was $13 billion, though Porat notes the majority of this was driven by investment in technical infrastructure – largely servers, followed by data centers.
Google mixes in AI results with search results. Google’s large language models will be continuing to integrate into Google docs, Google photos and other Google products.
Google AI is competing against Meta Llama, OpenAI GPT4o, Anthropic Claude, XAI Grok and other AI.
Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said the Google parent company will invest an additional $5 billion into its self-driving car unit Waymo.
Alphabet’s Other Bets unit, which includes Waymo, delivered $365 million in quarterly revenue, up from $285 million a year ago. Waymo made about $20 million. Other Bets losses widened to $1.13 billion from $813 million in the year-earlier period.
CEO Sundar Pichai said on the earnings call that Waymo provides 50,000 weekly paid trips, primarily in San Francisco and Phoenix. It has completed 2 million trips to date. In June, Waymo removed the waitlist and opened Waymo rides to all San Francisco users.
Uber does about 27 million trips per day (about 9-10 billion per year). Uber still has 500-5000 times more volume than Waymo.
Waymo’s 2024 revenues could reach $50-75 million according to Bank of America. B of A estimate Waymo might incur losses of $1.2-1.5 billion in 2024, given its employee count of 2,500-3,000.
General Motors’ autonomous vehicle unit Cruise said it would indefinitely delay the production of the Origin, a self-driving shuttle designed for use in cities.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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