Google has recently unveiled its next-phase strategic blueprint, identifying quantum computing, robotics, and AI-driven drug discovery as the three core engines driving the group's long-term growth.
According to Zhitong Finance APP, Google (GOOGL.US) has recently officially unveiled its next-phase strategic blueprint, identifying quantum computing, robotics, and AI-driven drug discovery as the core engines for driving long-term growth. This strategic transformation is driven by the comprehensive escalation of global competition in generative artificial intelligence — to break through the growth ceiling of its search advertising business, Google is accelerating its capture of the commercialization high ground in frontier technologies through intensive capital investment. It is reported that the company plans to transform "forward-looking projects" currently in the lab stage into pillar industries with trillion-dollar market potential, with R&D investment intensity expected to reach an all-time high.
In terms of the competitive landscape, Google continues to demonstrate its technological barrier advantages. Despite the emergence of new AI search engine players like Perplexity over the past two years, attempting to challenge Google's market position through differentiated technical approaches, data shows that these competitors have failed to shake its dominance: Google’s global search market share reached 90.15% in February 2025, remaining stable at 90.01% in February 2026.
Although Tesla's (TSLA.US) autonomous taxi service has been anticipated for years, Waymo (WAYMO), a subsidiary of Google, has outpaced Elon Musk-led Tesla in deployment speed across major U.S. metropolitan areas. Waymo Driver was launched in five U.S. cities last year and will be rolled out in another five cities this year, with international markets on the horizon. In contrast, Tesla’s Robotaxi service is currently only available in parts of Austin, Texas. Waymo has also partnered with DoorDash (DASH.US) to launch autonomous delivery services.
Anat Ashkenazi, Google's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, stated that they remain focused on converting the surge in capital expenditure into future profitability.
"Looking back at the autonomous driving experiments initiated by Waymo five to ten years ago, some projects have now entered the commercial implementation phase, while a significant proportion are still in the technical validation period," Ashkenazi said at Morgan Stanley's Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference on Tuesday. "Underpinning these frontier explorations is Gemini infrastructure and advanced model systems, which serve as Google's technological foundation. For example, regarding our cloud strategy — as I mentioned during the earnings call, this year we will deploy more than half of our machine learning computational resources to the cloud, marking a major upgrade in our technical architecture."
At the level of technological investment, Google continues to increase its capital expenditure. Actual capital expenditure in 2025 reached $91 billion, significantly higher than the initial guidance range of $70-75 billion; planned expenditure for 2026 is set to rise further to between $175-185 billion. Although about 70% of this massive investment is allocated to data center expansion and core computational power enhancement, a substantial portion is directed towards future innovation fields such as quantum computing, robotics, and AI-driven drug discovery, creating a dual-wheel drive pattern of "current competitiveness" and "future growth poles."
"We have yet to delve deeply into the potential of Isomorphic Labs and how AI can reshape the paradigm of drug discovery — especially in overcoming current medical challenges and making breakthrough contributions to human health," Ashkenazi said. "This is precisely where my professional background lies, so I understand deeply: when AI compresses the new drug development cycle from ten years to three, it is not just a technological leap but a paradigm revolution in global health."
She elaborated further on the quantum computing strategy: "Although quantum computing has not yet entered the commercial stage, we anticipate achieving key application breakthroughs within five years. The team has already made substantial progress in optimizing algorithms and hardware synergy, and in the future, it will unleash disruptive potential in fields such as materials science and cryptography."
Turning to the robotics business, she emphasized: "Robotics technology, including Intrinsic, is fostering multiple emerging growth drivers through deep integration with AI within Google. This underscores the importance of strategic investment discipline — we need to make precise selections among dozens of frontier fields, and the three core tracks confirmed so far each possess market potential worth hundreds of billions."
"The results of these investments have started to show," she presented with supporting data, "the Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) improvement plan we committed to two years ago is now demonstrating results in the data.Return on Invested CapitalIt has already driven revenue growth across multiple business units and will fuel future growth."
