Google energy chief argues under-building, not over-building, is the larger AI infrastructure risk

Google's global head of energy and power, Amanda Peterson Corio, pushed back on fears of an AI data-center glut days after Alphabet shares sold off on its third-quarter report. She said demand from customers is clear and that the company is fairly confident its current build-out will be used. The remarks come alongside management's reaffirmed 2026 capital spending range and a signal of a significant further increase in 2027. Management also said Google began tapping third-party compute capacity at the end of the quarter, a move expected to weigh on margins in the near term, and that capacity remains tight.

1. Amanda Peterson Corio, Google's global head of energy and power, said she is more worried about underbuilding than overbuilding, per remarks reported Nov. 2, 2026.
2. Alphabet maintained its full-year 2026 capex forecast of $195 billion to $205 billion and still expects a significant increase in 2027.
3. Google began using third-party compute capacity at the end of Q3 2026 and plans to ramp it in Q4; management expects this to pressure margins near term.
4. Q3 2026 capital expenditures were $51.36 billion, below the roughly $55.09 billion analysts expected, per CNBC as cited by Benzinga.
5. Q3 2026 free cash flow was negative $9.07 billion; consolidated revenue rose 25% to $127.6 billion and Google Cloud revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion.
6. Nearly 100 clients use TPUs; management expects just over 55% of Cloud backlog to be recognized as revenue over the next 24 months.