Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) disclosed on July 30 that its second-quarter net income included $53.4 billion of non-operating pre-tax other income, primarily from its Anthropic investments. Net income reached $62.6 billion. The same day, Reuters relayed a Wall Street Journal report that Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) could guarantee billions of dollars of Anthropic’s obligations for a proposed $15 billion Texas data-center financing.
Amazon’s gain shows how quickly a private AI valuation can enter public-company earnings, but investors should separate it from operating performance. The gain could reverse if Anthropic’s valuation falls. The strategic connection is more durable. On April 20, Anthropic committed to spend more than $100 billion on AWS technologies over ten years and secure up to five gigawatts of capacity using Amazon’s Trainium chips. Amazon therefore benefits through both the carrying value of its investment and Claude’s demand for its infrastructure. The counterweight is capital intensity. Trailing-12-month free cash flow fell to a $7.6 billion outflow as property and equipment purchases increased, primarily for AI.
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Alphabet’s proposed role carries a different risk. Nexus Data Centers is reportedly in advanced talks to raise $15 billion for a campus in Hubbard, Texas, with a 1.6-gigawatt power plant. Google would guarantee billions of dollars covering four Anthropic leases and related power payments if Anthropic defaults. The backing is reportedly limited to the minimum lenders require, while Google is expected to receive about 20% of the data-center and power project. Anthropic plans to use Google TPUs co-designed with Broadcom, giving Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) chip demand and project equity alongside the contingent exposure.
The news strengthens the investment case for Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) more clearly than it does for Alphabet. Amazon already has a long-term customer commitment and a valuable Anthropic stake, supporting a constructive view despite heavy spending. Investors should not treat the $53.4 billion gain as recurring earning power. Alphabet’s reported arrangement does not warrant a bearish shift, but patience is sensible until the financing closes and the guarantee’s size, cap, and exit terms become known. Its TPU economics and project stake may compensate for the risk, but the current evidence cannot establish that yet.
Insider Monkey’s database showed 357 hedge funds with Amazon positions at the end of Q1 2026, down from 385 in Q4 2025. At the July 15 settlement, 106,566,350 AMZN shares were sold short, or 1.09% of float, up 6.20% from the previous report, with 2.8 days to cover. The pre-results increase may partly reflect concern about capital intensity and negative free cash flow. The low percentage shows bearish positioning remained modest.
While we acknowledge the risk and potential of AMZN and GOOGL as investments, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN and GOOGL and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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