Google parent Alphabet on Wednesday missed Wall Street profit and revenue expectations, and AI spending accelerated its cash burn, sending its shares down more than 10 percent in extended trading. Capital expenditures, driven by AI, will increase significantly in 2027, said Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi, adding that this year's capex forecast was unchanged. She said she also expected near-term margin pressure from the use of third-party cloud capacity. The tech giant reported negative free cash flow of US$9.07 billion, compared with analyst expectations that it would come close to breaking even, according to data compiled by LSEG. The results reflect the huge costs of the AI buildout, with investors in the sector concerned both by potential overspending and the risk of falling behind rivals by not spending enough. The quarterly cash burn is an increase from US$5.9 billion in the prior quarter, which was the first time the company went into the negative in its 22-year history as a public company. Alphabet's cash burn was driven by spending to boost cloud capacity and fund AI research. It reported a US$7.66 billion operating income loss in "Alphabet-level activities," which it said primarily reflected expenses related to AI research and development. The tech giant's total revenue for the third quarter was US$127.6 billion, short of analysts' estimate of US$128.2 billion, according to LSEG data. The revenue miss was caused by Google's core advertising business that reported US$82.01 billion in revenue, about US$1.41 billion short of expectations. Net income available to common shareholders fell 25 percent to US$26.17 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of US$2.67 missed Wall Street targets of US$3.02. Earlier on Wednesday, Google sought to preempt its results and counter the perception it had fallen behind in the AI race by announcing its new Gemini 4 Carbon model, which CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts during the earnings call meant it was again "leading at the frontier." Revenue at Google Cloud exceeded estimates and more than doubled to US$30.71 billion in the third quarter ended September 30, but was not enough to make up for the ad-side performance. (Reuters) Edited by Cecil Wong

Microsoft on Wednesday forecast fiscal second-quarter cloud growth and overall sales that beat Wall Street estimates, sending shares up more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. The forecast came after Microsoft had earlier beaten expectations for first-quarter cloud revenue, offering fresh evidence that its hefty AI investments were paying off as Wall Street grows increasingly wary of Big Tech's debt-fuelled spending. The software and cloud company also generated US$18.6 billion in free cash flow in its fiscal first quarter ended September – some US$10 billion more than analysts expected – as capital spending came in below the company's own forecast and Microsoft's Azure cloud computing business surged 48 percent. Microsoft said it expects second-quarter Azure growth of 49 to 50 percent, above analyst estimates of 47.6 percent, according to Visible Alpha data. The company forecast overall sales of US$96 billion to US$97.1 billion, above estimates of US$95.6 billion, according to LSEG data. That financial firepower set Microsoft apart from rivals such as Alphabet and Meta, whose heavy AI investments have squeezed free cash flow and increased their reliance on borrowing. Alphabet reported negative free cash flow of US$9.07 billion in the third quarter as capital spending jumped, overshadowing a doubling of its cloud sales and sending its shares down 8 percent in extended trading. Microsoft shares have risen about 9 percent so far this year, through Wednesday's close. Its five-year credit default swaps – a measure of perceived default risk – remain the tightest among the largest tech companies, according to Truist, even as spreads have widened across much of the AI trade. The results also show Microsoft capitalising on corporate demand for AI, easing fears that the technology threatens its software empire and that its AI fortunes are too closely tied to unprofitable OpenAI. CEO Satya Nadella has sought to capture that demand by giving customers cheaper options, as businesses grapple with the rising cost of deploying AI. Microsoft has rolled out a string of lower-cost models, while its new Copilot Cowork agent allows users to switch between models. "By helping organisations build and own their own intelligence, and earning trust through agent safety and security, we are translating our innovation into growing adoption," Nadella said in a statement on Wednesday. "Microsoft's first-quarter report was about as clean as it gets for a company this size," said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com. "After Meta's and Alphabet's numbers revived AI-spending anxiety, this is the counterweight. Demand still exceeds supply, the commercial backlog is enormous, and returns are finally showing up in earnings and overall revenue." Revenue at Microsoft's Azure cloud computing business grew to US$33.17 billion in the quarter, topping Visible Alpha's estimate of US$32.84 billion. Overall revenue rose by a fifth to $92.28 billion, and an adjusted profit of US$4.89 per share beat an average estimate of US$4.73 a share. (Reuters) Edited by Cecil Wong

Microsoft has never disclosed Azure's quarterly revenue in dollars. But for the first time, we can see just how close it is getting to besting the biggest competitor in the market, AWS.

The announcement came alongside parent company Alphabet's third-quarter earnings report, which saw revenue grow 25% year over year to $127.6 billion.

Microsoft said it made $10 billion in revenue from commercial arrangements with OpenAI, including revenue-sharing payments, in the quarter ending September 30. It underscores the still-enormous financial dependency of the partnership.

Whatever the future of AI might be, the current situation is still very good for Microsoft. The tech giant reported yet another record for quarterly revenue on Wednesday: $92.3 billion, a 19% increase over the year-ago quarter.

Wall Street stocks finished higher on Wednesday after a choppy session, digesting a status quo US Federal Reserve decision as markets monitored the latest earnings from US tech giants. The Fed, as expected, held interest rates steady, citing the need for more data in the fight against inflation despite persistently elevated pricing pressure. Two dissenting members of the panel voted for an immediate interest rate increase. Major US indices spent most of the day in positive territory but traded within a fairly narrow range. The broad-based S&P 500 finished up 0.3 percent. Art Hogan of B Riley Wealth Management said the market's biggest priority this week is sifting through a deluge of earnings, including Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet, two of the biggest companies in artificial intelligence. The tech results are "100 percent the focus," said Hogan. "The market is taking a 'nothing to see here' attitude towards what the Fed did today." Citing higher energy prices in recent weeks, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said "our job is to ensure that relative price changes in some sectors do not broaden out across the economy," Warsh said at a news conference. Still, he said the Fed needed more information in the coming weeks to "determine the policy stance appropriate to ensure a timely return of inflation to the two-percent goal." The AI trade enjoyed a broad lift earlier on Wednesday from blockbuster earnings from the South Korean chip giant SK hynix, which soared almost 11 percent, helping to lift Seoul's Kospi index more than six percent. SK hynix, a specialist supplier of high-bandwidth memory chips to US industry behemoth Nvidia, unveiled plans to return an additional US$45 billion to shareholders after reporting operating profits about seven times the year-ago level. The global race to build AI data centres has transformed the company's fortunes, despite concerns that the sector may be overvalued. The report by SK hynix added to optimism surrounding the sector after Anthropic, the creator of Claude AI, said on Monday that its first-half revenue surged about 1,300 percent and flagged heavy capital spending ahead, fuelling enthusiasm ahead of an expected IPO next month. AI stocks took a beating earlier this month over worries about the massive investments and debt levels in the sector, but then welcomed Anthropic's IPO. In other markets, oil prices moved higher following reports that the United States is planning to mount a new military attack in Iran after the US midterm elections. Gains in the US dollar, meanwhile, moderated after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's press conference. Warsh is saying the Fed's first interest rate hike in September "had a large impact, which indicates that he doesn't think the Fed has that much more to do," said Adam Button, currency analyst at investingLive. The S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent, to 7,744, the Dow rose 0.2 percent, to 52,475, while the Nasdaq rose 0.3 percent, to 26,550. (AFP) Edited by Robert Kemp

The US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, as expected, opting to delay any changes to borrowing costs until after next week's US midterm elections while it awaits further data on inflation, which the central bank said "remains elevated." The 10-2 decision to maintain the Fed's benchmark interest rate within the 3.75-4 percent range came with an upgraded assessment of an economy that the central bank now says is growing at a "strong pace." Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh also expressed confidence that inflation can be lowered to the 2 percent target without having to "throw sand in the gears" and slow growth or raise unemployment. Warsh, speaking at a press conference after the end of a two-day policy meeting, said he expects a report on third-quarter gross domestic product on Thursday to show strong investment and consumer spending and an acceleration of growth from the first half of the year. Warsh, however, said he still does not think the economy is "too hot" or generating demand-side inflation that needs to be curbed. "The economy is pointing in the right direction. Is the economy running too hot? Is the economy running too strong? That isn't the judgement of most of my colleagues," said Warsh, arguing, as he has before, that changes in productivity, even pre-dating the artificial intelligence boom, may allow the US to grow faster without as much inflation. "The goal, in my view... isn't to throw sand in the gears of the economy and throw people out of work. I don't think we have to do that." Rather, he said, a higher Fed policy rate is already showing its impact in slightly tighter credit conditions that could, for example, slow business investment and which arguably contributed to recent stock market declines, another potential source of "disinflation" if it slows spending among wealthier families. In comments to CNBC on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration continues to have faith that Warsh will "find the right balance" between the 2 percent inflation goal and continuing economic growth. The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee's latest policy statement, however, hinted that more rate hikes may be needed, and some of Warsh's colleagues have been explicit in their concerns that demand, fuelled by AI and healthy consumer spending, is starting to drive prices higher. Between now and the next policy meeting in December, "the accumulation of more information will help the Committee determine the policy stance appropriate to ensure a timely return of inflation to the Committee's 2 percent goal," the FOMC said. "The Committee will deliver price stability." Fed Governor Lisa Cook, currently being targeted by President Donald Trump for removal from the central bank, cast her first dissent on a central bank policy decision on Wednesday, favouring a quarter-percentage-point rate hike. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, a consistently hawkish voice, also dissented in favour of a rate increase. Market reaction was muted, with US stocks paring gains slightly after the decision but ending higher on the day. Longer-dated US Treasury yields extended their rise. Short-term interest-rate futures rose a bit, as traders scaled back a bit on bets of Fed rate hikes ahead. "The forces keeping the Federal Reserve hawkish haven't faded. Diesel and gasoline prices remain elevated, AI-driven inflation isn't easing, and the labour market remains resilient," said Michael Pearce, chief US economist at Oxford Economics. The outcome of this week's meeting was widely expected after top Fed officials indicated they saw no rush to raise rates again following the quarter-percentage-point increase approved last month, despite inflation data in the meantime that was stronger than forecast and concerns that price pressures are broadening across the economy. Financial markets are still pricing in a couple of additional rate hikes in the coming months, though with slightly less conviction than before Warsh spoke on Wednesday. Pricing shows about an 80 percent chance of a rate hike at the Fed's December 8-9 meeting, with another increase in borrowing costs likely by March. (Reuters) Edited by Cecil Wong

A hacker obtained personally identifiable information about more than 40,000 Homeland Security staffers, which has since been published online.

The frontier lab is lifting the curtain on how users spend money on its models ahead of a planned IPO.

The PHP scare may have faded from your feed, but the cleanup is far from over. Last week, two critical bugs in the open source language behind roughly 70% of websites left organizations scrambling to fix their systems, with some taking sites offline until the vulnerabilities could be patched. According to researchers who found the […]

The Federal Reserve left its benchmark rate untouched, but a December hike could make holiday borrowing more costly.

MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display has been launched in India, the Cupertino-based tech giant announced on Wednesday. The laptop was launched as part of the company's ‘Pro and Tell’ event. The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display arrives as Apple’s first laptop with an OLED display, and also the first MacBook Pro model to feature a touchscreen. The MacBook Pro m...

Apple's new touchscreen MacBook Pro starts at $2,899.

Xreal Aura will start at $1,279 and will have multiple XR specific apps at launch.

A new developer platform will let businesses bring their services to Google's AI experiences, potentially changing how consumers discover and use apps.

The autofill update lets Chrome pull flight confirmations, tracking info, order details, and other information from your inbox, with your permission.

The For You feed combines posts from communities users have joined with recommendations tailored to their interests.

Tech leaders are flaunting how out of touch they are when they brag about using AI to connect with their families.

Constellation Energy will get $5 billion in government loans to modernize nuclear reactors. Most of the new capacity is already committed to Google, Amazon, and Meta.

South Korea’s financial institutions have been hit by another wave of cyberattacks, highlighting the growing risk of AI-driven hacking in Asia.

Nvidia just released a free speech-to-text model that can transcribe up to 40 languages, but it only works on recordings, not live audio, so it’s a big step for meeting and medical transcription tools while still leaving real-time use to rivals like ElevenLabs.

Amazon's other new devices include an upgraded Echo Dot, an Echo Studio with visual intelligence features, and the Echo Show 16.

The move puts TikTok in more direct competition with platforms like Yelp and Google.

Lava has announced festive prices for select smartphones and feature phones across online platforms and offline retail stores in India. The deals include models from the Virat, Bold and Agni series, with smartphone prices starting at Rs. 7,549 on Amazon and Rs. 9,499 on Flipkart. The Lava Agni 4 is listed at Rs. 28,249, while select feature phones will be available at...

Coinbase, Bithumb, Mirae Asset Global Investments and Daishin Securities have reported data security incidents involving customer information or internal business systems. Coinbase attributed its incident to third-party analytics provider Amplitude and said customer funds remained safe. Bithumb reported unauthorised access to an internal employee communication applica...