By Adam Spatacco
Publication Date: 2025-12-12 18:35:00
Alphabet recently overtook Microsoft as the third-most valuable company in the world.
No company in the technology industry has benefited from the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as much as Nvidia (NVDA 2.38%). Over the last three years, shares of the semiconductor giant have soared by more than 970% — propelling its market cap to $4.5 trillion and making it the most valuable company in the world.
NVDA Market Cap data by YCharts.
By contrast, Alphabet‘s (GOOGL 0.99%) (GOOG 0.94%) price action was fairly muted throughout much of the AI revolution — up until recently. Investors were initially concerned that the rise of large language models (LLMs) and chatbots posed an existential threat to the crown jewel of Alphabet’s business empire: its Google Search business.
Yet Alphabet appears to have put these worries to rest, and the stock’s recent rally has put a $4 trillion market cap in sight. So could Alphabet be on its way to eclipsing Nvidia?
Alphabet is a one-stop-shop AI ecosystem
When OpenAI released ChatGPT three years ago, many analysts on Wall Street almost immediately bought into the idea that the chatbot would make Google Search into a relic. For a while, this sentiment appeared realistic.
Growth in Alphabet’s advertising segment — primarily stemming from Google and YouTube — was failing to impress investors. Moreover, few were giving the company credit for its cloud computing business, which until the first quarter of 2023 was unprofitable.
Fast-forward…
