Alphabet (GOOGL): The $0 buyback freeze & the off-cloud hardware pivot [Q1 2026]

Alphabet’s Q1 2026 results show a company completely abandoning its massive stock buyback engine to fund a staggering $35.7 billion AI infrastructure land grab.In ~10 minutes:- Why Alphabet repurchased exactly zero shares this quarter.- The $37B unrealized equity gain creating an earnings illusion.- Google breaking rules to sell physical TPUs for private data centers.- The cloud backlog effectively doubling sequentially to $462B.To capture massive enterprise demand from clients unwilling to use public infrastructure, Google is acting less like a cloud host and more like a heavy industry utility company. But with Capex guidance rising and the core Network ad business starting to bleed traffic to its own AI overviews, this aggressive expansion comes at the direct cost of near-term free cash flow.Company: Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) | Q1 FY2026AI-assisted production. Feedback/ticker requests: https://x.com/EarnUnscripted.