Alphabet is taking on OpenAI with a gusto that underscores Wall Street’s perception that the Google parent is the leader in AI, a turn of events from a year ago when investors thought it was badly lagging behind rivals and punished its stock. That showed in the confident tone executives struck on the post-earnings call, the first since Alphabet released the Gemini 3 model. But its shares fell 3% on Wednesday after the company said it would spend up to $185 billion this year, deepening investor scrutiny as the expenditure potentially more than doubles from 2025 and eclipses rivals Microsoft, Meta and Amazon. “We’re quickly getting to north ‍of a ⁠trillion dollars in combined 2026 investment across the mega caps if we consider both capital expenditure and associated resourcing needs,” Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik said. “For that trillion to pay off suggests the total addressable market for AI-driven products and enhancements needs to be multiples of that very quickly.” For now, the AI spending is reaping returns, and its shares remain more than 80% higher …