Bloomberg News reports that Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo is in advanced talks to raise approximately $16 billion in a new financing round, which would value the business at nearly $110 billion. Sources indicate lead investors include a mix of sovereign wealth funds and global pension plans, each expected to commit in the low-single-digit billions. If completed, this round would mark one of the largest venture-style financings ever for a division of a public company and would underscore Waymo’s efforts to scale its robotaxi fleet and commercial freight services across multiple U.S. metros by late 2027.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post has raised his fourth-quarter revenue estimate for Alphabet to $95.9 billion and EPS to $2.65, up from previous forecasts of $95.2 billion and $2.64, respectively. Post cites a pickup in holiday ad spending driven by AI-enhanced targeting on Search and YouTube, projecting Search growth of 15%–16% year-over-year and YouTube ad growth near 14%–15%. He also anticipates 119 basis points of operating margin expansion as infrastructure costs moderate. For the full year 2026, Post now models capex of $139 billion, a 14% increase, reflecting sustained investment in data centers and AI compute.

In a key legal victory, Google persuaded a San Francisco federal judge to reject consumer claims seeking over $2 billion in penalties related to alleged data harvesting from users who had disabled a privacy setting. The ruling stems from a proposed class action over Google’s collection of browsing information between 2018 and 2020. Legal experts suggest this outcome not only removes a significant overhang on Alphabet’s litigation reserves but also sets a precedent that could limit damages in other privacy-related suits against major tech platforms.

Industry research highlights Alphabet’s Gemini AI model—now serving over 650 million monthly active users—as the backbone of Google Cloud’s recent 34% year-over-year revenue expansion. Investors are noting that while pure-play AI applications attract headlines, Alphabet’s moat lies in delivering AI compute, data management, and developer tools at scale. With Google Cloud now accounting for nearly one-fifth of total revenue and operating losses narrowing by roughly $1.5 billion in the past year, Wall Street views Alphabet as a lower-risk way to play the multi-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure opportunity.