Global tech giants face market volatility amid aggressive AI expansion
Major technology firms are pouring billions into AI amid market turbulence: Alphabet lost more than $500 billion in market value in a day, while Anthropic is reported to be preparing a record IPO and Meta plans to raise $35 billion.
Large technology companies are spending heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) while markets react nervously to what that spending does to their results. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, lost more than $500 billion in market value in a single day after publishing its latest quarterly results, according to Onlinekhabar. Its quarterly revenue rose 25 percent from a year earlier to $127.6 billion, but its profit for the quarter fell 25 percent. Investors grew concerned after the company disclosed that AI-generated summaries in Google Search were affecting its advertising income, the outlet reported.
Competitive shifts in the AI market
Competition among AI chatbots remains intense. Citing Similarweb data published by Visual Capitalist, Nagarik News reported that ChatGPT, made by OpenAI, accounted for 56.4 percent of all visits to AI chatbot websites worldwide in September 2026, with about 5.9 billion visits that month. Google's Gemini was second with a 25 percent share, and the two together took more than 80 percent of visits. Anthropic's Claude has also been growing its share, the report said.
Anthropic's rise and Meta's funding plans
Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) that Corporate Nepal reported would be the largest in history, with the company aiming to break SpaceX's record. Setopati reported that the company was founded by seven researchers and executives who left OpenAI after disagreements over how fast AI should be developed and how to keep it safe, and that the seven are now on course to become among the richest people in the technology industry.
Meta, meanwhile, plans to raise $35 billion through a share sale to fund its AI development, Nepal Bahas reported, citing a filing made public by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Meta also announced plans for a further share sale of up to $60 billion, for which no date has been set. The fundraising follows Meta's creation, a few days earlier, of a new class of shares without voting rights, which the company said would give it more flexibility to raise capital for the AI race. Chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom have shown interest in buying up to $5 billion of the shares, Meta said, though those commitments are not binding.
Together, these moves show the largest technology companies continuing to put money into AI even as investors question how and when that spending will pay off.