Alphabet, the parent company of Google, surpassed a market capitalisation of $US4 trillion ($5.95 trillion) on Monday, joining a small group of companies to ever achieve such a valuation. This milestone reflects growing investor confidence in Alphabet as a major beneficiary of the artificial intelligence surge. Alphabet provides various products and services, including the Google search engine, online advertising technologies, cloud computing, software, and hardware. The company focuses on organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.
Shares of Alphabet climbed as much as 1.7 per cent to $US334.04, briefly pushing its market cap to $US4 trillion before slightly retreating. With this surge, Alphabet recently surpassed Apple to become the second-largest company globally, trailing only Nvidia. Currently, only Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft have exceeded the $US4 trillion mark, with Nvidia being the sole company to have crossed the $US5 trillion threshold.
The increase in Alphabet’s stock value on Monday followed a report by CNBC indicating that Apple had selected Alphabet’s Gemini to power an AI-enhanced version of its Siri digital assistant. Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that Apple intends to pay Alphabet approximately $US1 billion annually for the AI integration with Siri. These developments highlight the growing collaboration between tech giants in the AI space.
Alphabet’s stock has risen 4.8 per cent year-to-date, building upon its impressive rally of over 65 per cent last year. This performance made it the top performer among the ‘magnificent seven’ tech stocks. The gains since last year have added nearly $US1.5 trillion to Alphabet’s market valuation, underscoring its strong position in the technology sector.
