Cash is king as investors draw new battle lines in AI spending boom

By Aditya Soni and Deborah Mary Sophia Oct 29 (Reuters) Cash flow is king again. Wall Street rewarded Microsoft and Oracle on Wednesday for showing that they could fund their enormous AI ambitions without endlessly tapping investors. Alphabet, by contrast, was punished for burning through cash, while Google Search s slower growth fanned fears that competition was hurting the business that bankrolls its ​AI expansion. Microsoft shares jumped more than 3% in after-hours trading, while Alphabet plunged nearly 10%, as investors drew a ‌sharper distinction between companies making money from AI and those struggling to contain its costs. The divergence shows that after rewarding companies for spending aggressively to secure computing capacity — often through debt — investors are demanding more evidence that the resulting growth can finance the next round of outlays. Meta offered an early warning last week, when better-than-expected revenue growth and an upbeat outlook were eclipsed by its