Goldman Sachs Revalues Google After Earnings: Raises Cloud Revenue Forecast by 13%, Sees $350 Billion in 2027 Capex
目录
TL;DR
This Report Is Rewriting Google’s Business Model
Nearly All Forecast Upgrades Come from Cloud—and So Do the Margin Downgrades
$350 Billion in Capex Shifts the Valuation Question from the Income Statement to the Cash Flow Statement
Why Did the Price Target Fall from $440 to $435 Despite Higher Earnings Forecasts?
Our View: Goldman Is Right on Demand, but Returns Still Require Quarterly Validation
Conclusion
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Goldman Sachs maintains its Buy rating on Google and its $435 price target. The report’s key change is the simultaneous upward revision to cloud revenue, downward revision to cloud margins, and renewed acceleration in capital expenditure.
TL;DR
Google’s largest positive surprise in Q2 2026 came from its cloud business: revenue reached $24.768 billion, up 82% year over year and 10.1% above consensus; operating profit was $8.814 billion, with a 35.6% margin, 4.29 percentage points above consensus. Goldman consequently raised its 2027 Google Cloud revenue forecast by 13%, from $165.9 billion to $187.5 billion.
This is not an unconditional earnings upgrade. Goldman simultaneously cut its 2027 and 2028 cloud operating profit forecasts by 7.8% and 21%, respectively, lowering its margin forecasts from 36.7% and 38.7% to 29.9% and 29.0%. Stronger revenue but lower margins suggest that depreciation, third-party compute, and capacity built ahead of demand will absorb part of the operating leverage.
Goldman expects Google’s capital expenditure to reach approximately $203.1 billion in 2026 and $349.9 billion in 2027, with capex intensity rising to 63.8% in 2027. Free cash flow is projected to fall from $73.3 billion in 2025 to approximately $3.4 billion in 2026, before turning negative at $34.5 billion in 2027. Google is evolving from an asset-light, highly cash-generative advertising platform into a more capital-intensive AI infrastructure and applications platform.
Goldman maintains its Buy rating but lowered its price target from $440 to $435. The rationale is straightforward: higher cloud revenue expands the long-term earnings opportunity, while capex, depreciation, and longer cash-payback periods reduce the cash conversion of those earnings. The key question is not whether Gemini’s user base can continue growing, but whether backlog can convert into high-margin revenue and whether operating cash flow can once again cover capital expenditure.
This Report Is Rewriting Google’s Business Model
Google generated total revenue of $119.796 billion this quarter, up 24% year over year. Search and other advertising revenue reached $63.271 billion, up 17%, while YouTube advertising revenue rose 13% to $11.055 billion. These figures suggest that AI search has not yet disrupted the core advertising franchise, but they are not the primary driver of Goldman’s higher medium- and long-term forecasts.
The real change to the model comes from Google Cloud. Revenue reached $24.768 billion, up 82% year over year; operating profit increased by approximately 212%, while the operating margin rose from 20.7% to 35.6%. Cloud backlog increased by approximately $50 billion quarter over quarter to $514 billion. Nearly 90% of Fortune 100 companies are using Gemini Enterprise, and new-customer acquisition doubled year over year. Goldman also noted that direct TPU hardware sales and customer commitments remain relatively small but are increasing.
Goldman’s long-term thesis on Google is therefore no longer simply that “search advertising remains resilient,” but that Google combines “AI distribution through applications with billions of users” with proprietary compute and cloud infrastructure. Search, YouTube, and Gemini provide consumer access points, while Google Cloud, Gemini Enterprise, and TPUs drive enterprise monetization. As AI commercialization moves from infrastructure to platforms and applications, Google has an opportunity to capture value simultaneously from compute, software, and traffic distribution.
