BofA Securities analyst Justin Post reiterated a Buy rating on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), with a price forecast of $173. Google kicked off its annual Cloud Next event with a keynote announcing new custom AI chips (Axion & TPUs), platform-wide Gemini integration, strategic partnerships, and customer traction. According to the analyst, Google’s hardware advances, Gemini progress, and AI-driven app demos should help sentiment on AI capabilities. Apart from this, Google’s hardware advances, Gemini progress, and AI-driven app demos should help sentiment on AI capabilities, the analyst adds. Post writes that the Cloud AI cycle could be underappreciated for the industry and a positive driver for Google stock given the growing scale & potential contributor to higher overall revenue growth. In addition, increasing cloud margins aiding EPS and growing stock valuation contribution on ’26 revenues can be positive drivers for Google stock. The analyst specifically highlighted the new custom Axion AI chip (CPUs) in