Shares in Alphabet (GOOGL) climbed on Friday after its Google Cloud platform sealed a nearly $10B Palo Alto network deal. The cloud computing unit and cybersecurity company announced an ​expanded partnership that was by far Google ‌Cloud’s largest security services deal, per a Reuters report. According to sources close to the deal, the contract comprises a commitment by Palo Alto to pay a sum “approaching $10 ‌billion” to Google Cloud over several years. Google arent company Alphabet (GOOGL) saw its stock climb just over one percent, closing off what was previously a bearish week for the tech stock.

Palo Alto president ‍BJ Jenkins says some of the funding will go into migrating ⁠Palo Alto’s existing offerings to ‌Google’s platform, but a sizable portion will go into adding new services that involve AI. “This is ‌the same as when the cloud began to emerge and there were new security threats that no one had ever imagined,” Jenkins said. Alphabet and its Google services have reaped benefits from sizable investments in AI technology development. YTD, GOOGL stock is up 60% as a result, one of the best performances on the US market this year.

Additionally, GOOGL is also up thanks to Alphabet’s partnership with Meta Platforms (META) on a new initiative to make its artificial intelligence chips better than Nvidia’s (NVDA). Per sources close to a recent deal, the initiative aims to make Google’s artificial intelligence chips better at running PyTorch, the world’s most widely used AI software framework. PyTorch, an open-source project heavily supported by Meta Platforms, is one of the most widely used tools for developers who make AI models.

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On the contrary, Alphabet (GOOGL) may be facing yet another sizeable fine from EU authorities that could negatively affect its stock entering 2026. The world’s most popular internet search engine was charged by the European Commission in March with favouring its own services, including Google Shopping, Google Hotels, and Google Flights, over competitors in the territory. While Google has offered a series of tweaks to its search results up until October, it has failed to comply with the Digital Markets Act in the EU.

Alphabet is positioned for growth, particularly through its AI chip technology, which analysts value at $900 billion. Furthermore, several top, reliable Wall Street firms have GOOGL stock as a buy, with ATH expectations over the coming months. This could indicate that the Google developer is set for a second consecutive year of leading the magnificent-7.