Alphabet Climbs 3% as Nvidia's CEO Exit Puts Google TPUs in Focus

Alphabet shares jumped 3% to $301.97 in Thursday's trading, as investors bet that a sudden leadership vacuum at Nvidia could redirect AI chip spending toward Google's in-house Tensor Processing Units. Nvidia stock fell 6% on the news. Broadcom, which helps Google design its TPUs, climbed 5%.

What happened at Nvidia?

On November 12, Nvidia announced that Jensen Huang resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO while keeping her finance role, and the board is weighing internal and external candidates for a permanent successor. It also named Harvey Jones as the board's first-ever chair.

The company's products and contracts stay in place. "We expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption," Jones stated. Still, the transition hands Alphabet a fresh opening to pitch TPUs as an alternative to Nvidia's GPUs among the biggest cloud buyers.

For now, the buying in Alphabet reflects speculation, not signed deals. Nobody knows yet where the spending actually flows. But the market has already picked its early favorites.

Why does Alphabet benefit most?

Google Cloud revenue doubled, rising 103% year over year to $30.71 billion in Q3 2026, according to results the company reported on October 28. CEO Sundar Pichai said at the time: "We're also seeing strong demand for our TPU systems across a wide range of customers."

Microsoft gained 2% to $528.98 and Amazon ticked up 1% to $269.49, leaving Alphabet the clearest winner among the three cloud giants. That fits its longer track record in custom AI silicon.

Google rents TPU systems to customers through Google Cloud, turning custom chips into a revenue line as well as an internal cost tool. That direct path matters if AI buyers start looking beyond Nvidia.

Cloud demand runs strong across the group, but at different speeds:

• Google Cloud: up 103% year over year
• Microsoft Azure: up 48% in the quarter ended September
• Amazon Web Services: up 39% over the same stretch

How do the three chip strategies differ?

Microsoft pairs Nvidia hardware with its own Maia systems inside Azure, building what CEO Satya Nadella called a "fungible fleet" that shifts capacity to the highest-value workloads. Amazon sits closer to Google's model, running most of its Bedrock AI service on in-house Trainium chips and preparing to sell those chips outside AWS.

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy put the competitive field bluntly on the company's latest earnings call: "The number of companies who have a significant cloud business and a chip strong enough to sell externally is effectively two." By that count, Alphabet and Amazon form the small club of cloud providers developing merchant AI chips, while Microsoft leans harder on Nvidia.

Any stumble in Nvidia's execution cuts both ways for Microsoft and Amazon. Their data centers still depend on Nvidia hardware even as their own chips mature.

What could stall the trade?

Alphabet will soon learn whether TPU demand keeps building while Nvidia works through its transition. Nvidia reports Q3 FY2027 results on November 17, a release that should show whether customer relationships are holding.

The bears have numbers on their side, too. Alphabet's capital expenditures reached $51.36 billion in Q3, and its free cash flow came in at negative $9.07 billion. The company is funding part of its infrastructure push with debt and at-the-market share sales.

A quick rebound in Nvidia stock could cool the speculation lifting Alphabet. Until Nvidia names a permanent CEO, caution looks like the rational position.