Pichai: Google Cloud backlog hits $514 billion on 82% growth

Pichai opened the Q2 2026 earnings call by pointing to Search, saying "Our momentum starts with Search." That framing matters because Search and other advertising still generated $243 billion on a trailing 12-month basis, or 55% of Alphabet's total revenue, and grew 17% in the quarter — faster than the 12% it posted a year earlier. Google Services, which includes that advertising, will remain the core revenue and profit engine for at least a few more years.

Google Cloud looks different: it is growing much faster, yet it is still small at 17% of trailing 12-month revenue, and even with a 35% operating margin last quarter its operating income was only 22% of Alphabet's total operating profit. What stands out is the backlog's trajectory — it jumped 385% year over year — and Pichai's remark that only a "very small percentage of overall workloads and enterprises have shifted to cloud." Read together, the present still belongs to Search, while the backlog is the clearest sign of where the business is headed over the next decade.

The stake, then, is whether that $514 billion backlog keeps growing and converts into revenue at anything close to the 35% margin Cloud is delivering now. If it does, Cloud appears likely to contribute a significantly higher share of Alphabet's profit over the next 10 years, which would benefit Google stock — a case that rests on conversion, not on Cloud's current share of the business.