New Delhi, Oct. 28 -- Alphabet may be best known for the Google search engine, but all eyes will be on its Google Cloud segment when it reports third-quarter earnings on Wednesday afternoon. If Meta's earnings last week were any indication, investor attention will be squarely on the costs of the segment's artificial-intelligence investments, and how it intends to fund further growth.

Google's parent Alphabet is one of the clearest early winners in the AI boom. Although investors once feared the company's future prospects might be at risk from AI, search advertising is on pace to have its best annual sales growth since 2021. At over $60 billion (of which two-thirds were ads), last year YouTube had the highest sales of any video streamer, ...