Google-parent Alphabet’s cloud business experienced its slowest growth in at least 11 quarters, causing the company’s stock to drop. Despite beating profit and sales estimates, investors remain concerned about gains in artificial intelligence and competition from Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS. Google Cloud’s third-quarter revenue rose 22.5% to $8.41 billion, the slowest growth since the first quarter of 2021. On the other hand, Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud unit revenue reached $24.3 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimates. Alphabet recorded severance charges of $2.1 billion for the first nine months of the year.