Bloomberg

Cloud Fuels Big Tech’s $725B AI Spend; Meta Eyes Cloud

Second-quarter results from Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon show cloud businesses growing rapidly, underscoring cloud computing as a high-margin engine funding big tech’s AI investments. The combined AI capital expenditure for the four largest players (Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta) is cited at $725 billion. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s latest earnings call that Meta has received offers from businesses willing to pay a premium to rent Meta’s AI compute infrastructure, signaling Meta’s interest in following cloud-provider economics.

Airbnb Q2 Earnings Beat; Stock Rises 9%

Airbnb reported Q2 2026 results that beat analyst expectations, reporting EPS of $1.37 versus $1.25 expected and revenue of $3.61 billion versus $3.58 billion expected. Revenue rose 17% year-over-year and net income increased to $816 million from $642 million a year earlier. Free cash flow climbed 30% to $1.25 billion. The company issued guidance for the current period of $4.69–4.77 billion in revenue, above analysts’ $4.61 billion projection, and said demand is strong across all regions with particularly high growth in Latin America. Shares jumped roughly 9% in extended trading following the results.

Apple leaks iPhone 18 keynote timing

Apple's internal memo to U.S. retail staff, reported by Bloomberg and published on t3n.de, indicates the company's iPhone presentation is planned for the first half of September and strongly points to a September 9 keynote. The company is running an "Event Support Experience Program" — a lottery that invites store employees to help at the launch event (applications by August 8; selected staff informed by August 17). The September keynote is expected to show at least three devices: iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and a rumored foldable called the iPhone Ultra. The event would likely be the first major presentation with John Ternus as Apple's incoming CEO, succeeding Tim Cook in early September.