American corporations are increasingly shifting their workloads to Chinese artificial intelligence models to reduce costs. DeepSeek is leading this trend, but Alibaba's Qwen model has also significantly improved. The company claims that its Qwen3.8-Max model is comparable to the best US systems in terms of coding and reasoning, while offering a substantially lower cost per token.
The ride-hailing giant Uber publicly acknowledged using Chinese open models, which attracted the attention of US legislators. These officials have begun investigations into this practice due to national security concerns. Coinbase also made such a transition, cutting AI costs by almost half after implementing the Chinese models GLM 5.2 and Kimi 2.7, despite an overall increase in AI usage.
The main motivation for all companies is pricing. Analysts from Citi found that Chinese models can cost as little as 18 cents per million tokens, whereas leading competitors based in the US average around $4.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, released its second-quarter fiscal financial report this Wednesday (22), presenting revenues that exceeded market expectations. Furthermore, the company announced profits of US$ 99 billion (equivalent to BRL 501.5 billion) generated from its equity stakes in other companies, such as Anthropic and SpaceX.
During the second quarter, Alphabet achieved total revenue of US$ 119.8 billion (BRL 606.8 billion), surpassing the forecast by analysts consulted by LSEG, who had estimated US$ 116.9 billion (BRL 592.3 billion). The company also reported an earnings per share of US$ 9.11 (BRL 46.15). However, there was uncertainty regarding the comparability of this result with the estimate compiled by LSEG of US$ 2.89 (BRL 14.64) per share, due to possible variations in the calculation methodology used.
This announcement comes at a time when investors are closely monitoring the high investments made by large technology corporations to expand their infrastructure focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI). In recent months, these companies have allocated billions of dollars to building new data centers to meet the growing need for computing power, which in turn has begun to raise questions about the long-term sustainability of this demand.
According to consensus estimates from FactSet, Alphabet plans to invest approximately US$ 187.1 billion (BRL 947.8 billion) in capital expenditures throughout the current year.
The company's progress in AI remains a point of great interest for investors, especially after news that Google postponed the launch of its main AI model. However, on Tuesday (21), the company announced the launch of three new Gemini models with reduced costs. One of these models was specifically developed for cybersecurity, aiming to combat the challenges posed by the advancement of highly advanced AI systems, such as Anthropic's Mythos.
The company's Chief Financial Officer, Anat Ashkenazi, detailed the allocation of the US$ 44.9 billion (BRL 227.4 billion) invested by the company during a conference call with analysts. The majority of this amount was directed towards expanding the essential infrastructure for the development of AI technologies. According to Ashkenazi, the main focus of these investments was the technical infrastructure supporting the company's AI initiatives. She specified that about 60% of the resources were used for purchasing and expanding servers, while the remaining 40% was directed to data centers and network equipment, highlighting Google's priority in increasing computational capacity to support its AI models.
Tesla released its financial results for the second quarter on Wednesday (22), presenting a mixed scenario of positive and negative indicators. Although revenue exceeded Wall Street forecasts, the electric vehicle manufacturer's profit fell below what analysts had projected, leading the company's shares to drop after market close.
According to estimates collected by LSEG, Tesla's adjusted profit reached US$ 0.33 (equivalent to R$ 1.67) per share, falling short of the expected US$ 0.51 (R$ 2.58) per share. Conversely, total revenue reached US$ 28.2 billion (R$ 143 billion), exceeding the analysts' projection of US$ 25.7 billion (R$ 130.2 billion).
The company's official statement indicated that overall revenue grew by 26% compared to the same period last year, when revenue was US$ 22.5 billion (R$ 114 billion). Despite this increase in sales, net profit decreased by 5%. In the second quarter of last year, net profit was US$ 1.17 billion (R$ 5.9 billion), or US$ 0.33 (R$ 1.67) per share, while this quarter it was US$ 1.11 billion (R$ 5.6 billion), corresponding to US$ 0.32 (R$ 1.62) per share.
The automotive sector remained the main revenue generator for Tesla during the quarter, with revenue of US$ 20.52 billion (R$ 103.9 billion), representing a 23% annual growth. The energy division, which covers battery storage systems and solar panels, generated US$ 3.1 billion (R$ 15.9 billion), marking a 13% increase compared to the previous year. The services and other businesses segment, which includes revenue from out-of-warranty repairs, showed the highest percentage growth, generating US$ 4.5 billion (R$ 23.2 billion), a jump of 50% year-over-year.
Tesla also reported that its operating expenses grew at a faster rate than revenue in the quarter. Costs rose by 47% compared to the same period last year, totaling US$ 4.3 billion (R$ 22 billion). According to the company itself, this increase in spending is directly linked to investments made in artificial intelligence (AI) and other research and development projects.
The results were released amid a strong depreciation of Tesla's shares. The company's stock recorded a drop of about 11% just this month and a setback of 17% since the beginning of the year. This movement coincides with the loss of value of SpaceX, another billionaire company led by Elon Musk. After a record launch in June, SpaceX has already lost more than 40% of its value since the peak recorded after the close of trading.
