Google employs a lot of academics that probably use it. And of course they have a few AI related products that are probably being trained on scientific content

Google employs a lot of academics that probably use it. And of course they have a few AI related products that are probably being trained on scientific content as well. I bet Google Scholar feeds data into that effort. My guess is that keeping google scholar up and running isn't breaking the bank for them and it is actually a valuable resource for them.