Google's parent company, Alphabet, hit a new milestone on Friday: a $2 trillion market cap.
Google is now the world's fourth most valuable public
company, right behind Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft, which has a market cap of
just over $3 trillion and overtook Apple earlier this year for first place.
This isn't Alphabet's first brush with the $2 trillion club.
The company briefly hit the threshold in November 2021 and earlier this month
but closed above it for the first time on Friday, according to Bloomberg.
The news followed Alphabet's first-quarter earnings report
on Thursday, where revenue beat analysts' expectations due to the success of
Google's search engine. Alphabet's chief executive, Sundar Pichar, also
highlighted the contributions of Google Cloud, which has been equipped with
generative AI services through Google's AI model, Gemini.
"In Cloud, we have announced more than 1,000 new
products and features over the past 8 months. At Google Cloud Next, more than
300 customers and partners spoke about their generative AI successes with
Google Cloud, including global brands like Bayer, Cintas, Mercedes Benz,
Walmart, and many more," Pichai told investors during the call.
Pichai also said that Google was well "positioned for
the next wave of AI innovation and the opportunity ahead," and reminded
investors that the company has been "AI-first" since 2016.
The company also delighted investors by announcing that it
would expand its stock repurchase program by $70 billion.
Alphabet has weathered some tough times over the past year
despite the past week's success. It's contended growing pains with its AI
offerings, including pausing its image generator after it faced criticism for
being too woke.
Still, Alphabet is betting on AI as a key to its business
growth and is ready to spend big to compete. Earlier this month, it announced
that it would be developing its own central processing unit called Axion to
facilitate the training of complex AI models.
Alphabet did not immediately respond to a request for
comment from Business Insider.
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