Key Takeaways Shares of Google parent Alphabet tumbled Wednesday amid worries about whether the tech giant's spending on AI will pay off. Several analysts lowered their price targets for the stock, citing concerns about the company's weaker-than-expected cloud growth and plans to ramp up spending on AI.

Alphabet reports fourth-quarter earnings after Tuesday's closing bell. Investors will be focused on cloud momentum and AI traction, with shares of the Google and YouTube parent company holding fast near the record levels achieved last week.

From a purely business financials perspective, a large part of the reason for the sell-off stemmed from slowing growth in data centres revenue. Google’s cloud business is a huge money driver and posted a 30 per cent increase in revenues, totalling nearly $12bn (£9.6bn).

Alphabet said on Tuesday it will spend $75 billion on its AI buildout this year, 29% more than Wall Street expected, while posting cloud revenue that missed analysts' target. The tech giant's shares were down 9% in extended trading.

Excluding traffic acquisition costs, that figure was $81.6bn, missing Wall Street estimates in a Bloomberg poll of $82.8bn. Net income rose 28 per cent to $26.5bn. Alphabet shares dropped more than 6 per cent in after-hours trading.

Cloud revenue in the quarter of $12 billion—a 30% increase from last year—just misses analysts’ estimates of $12.2 billion.

(Reuters) -Alphabet missed Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Tuesday, in a sign the Google parent was taking a hit from increased competition in the digital advertising market and a slowdown in its cloud computing business.

Alphabet said Tuesday it will spend $75 billion on its AI buildout this year, 29% more than Wall Street expected, while posting cloud revenue that missed analysts’ target. The tech giant’s shares were down more than 7% in extended trading.