Google’s Parent Company Spends Like It’s Thinking of a Future Beyond Ads - The New York Times

Later in the article: "Also among the company’s expenditures in the quarter: $2.4 billion to buy the Chelsea Market building in Manhattan, where the company had set up some of its New York offices." Also see Google's New Spending Surge Shows a Company Playing Catch-Up (Bloomberg)

"Alphabet has made investments in areas like self-driving cars and online computer services for businesses for years, but spending in those areas was up dramatically in the first quarter. The company’s capital expenditures, which included installing undersea cables and the construction of new data centers, were $7.7 billion — more than triple the same period last year.

Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s chief financial officer, said that increase reflected a “commitment to growth” because the company had spent heavily on computing infrastructure, for both its own internal use and customer needs like Google Cloud — the unit that provides technology services to other companies."

Google’s Parent Company Spends Like It’s Thinking of a Future Beyond Ads - The New York Times