Not just Anthropic and SpaceX, but Google too is raising billions to spend on AI

AI is believed to be changing the world. But the development of AI is not cheap. Companies like Anthropic and SpaceX have recently filed for IPOs at trillion-dollar valuations as they raise funds. And now, Google too, is said to be raising billions of dollars as it expands its AI infrastructure.

On Monday, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, stated that it was raising $80 billion through a package of equity offerings. This includes a $10 billion investment from Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company previously led by Warren Buffett. Buffett stepped down as CEO in April, but continues to be the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

Apart from the $10 billion from Buffett’s holding company, the package includes a $40 billion at-the-market programme to sell shares from time to time beginning in the third quarter, and $30 billion of underwritten offerings of shares and mandatory convertible preferred stock.

Keep in mind that Google is already a publicly listed company with a valuation of roughly $4.5 trillion at the time of writing.

Why is Google raising funds?

It is not common for a publicly listed company to raise funds at this scale. However, Google is said to have some big plans for AI, in particular, for infrastructure. In April, the company raised its annual capital spending forecast by $5 billion to between $180 billion and $190 billion – largely to capture demand for AI compute.

Compute is necessary for running AI models. That is, any AI model like ChatGPT or Claude that runs on the Cloud needs compute in datacentres to run. And companies are now facing a shortage of this computing power as demand for AI tools increase.

Alphabet’s Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi said at the time that the company's capital expenditure in 2027 would be "significantly" higher than the up to 190 billion dollars budgeted for 2026.

The company said demand for its AI solutions and services from enterprises and consumers is exceeding its available supply. In a statement, Alphabet said, “By scaling its investments, the company seeks to expand its foundational infrastructure to support the significant growth opportunity ahead."

Google is trying to capitalise on growing demand for its homegrown AI chips, known as tensor processing units, or TPUs, which have emerged as an alternative to Nvidia's processors in a business that needs large amounts of computing power. Together, the planned transactions would rank among the largest equity deals on record, reflecting the scale of investment now required in AI.

Do note that the demand for compute has become so high that even companies that have previously not leased compute to customers, like Meta, are now open to the possibility of having their own cloud business in the future.

Google’s fundraising also comes at a time when AI companies are looking for more funds as a whole. SpaceX’s IPO filing values the company at roughly $1.75 trillion, which includes the AI startup xAI. On the other hand, Anthropic plans to raise funds at a $1 trillion valuation via its IPO, after crossing $900 billion market cap in private funding rounds. OpenAI is also tipped to be planning for an IPO before the end of this year.