Google blasts past $4 tn: How is it beating rivals?
Google has been the fastest to monetize its AI platforms, signing deals with large enterprises such as Samsung and India's homegrown oil-to-telecom major Reliance Industries Ltd, among others—its market growth is a clear reflection of these deals.
New Delhi: On Monday, Alphabet became the fourth-ever company to hit a market capitalization of $4 trillion, after announcing a deal with iPhone-maker Apple to power the latter’s AI assistant, Siri. In the week leading up to it, Google’s parent also overtook Apple to become the second-largest company in the world.
Alphabet’s growth comes amid warnings of a looming crash in artificial intelligence (AI). Mint explains what’s fuelling its rise.
What made Google surge in valuation?
In April last year, Google’s market cap fell to $1.8 trillion, ranking it behind Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon. In May, Google went all-out on AI in search, advertising and video generation. Investors cheered as Google grew at breakneck speed, adding over $2 trillion to its market cap in about six months last year.
It also caught up with key rival Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Going by Sundar Pichai and Altman’s statements, Google Gemini had 650 million users as of 30 September as against OpenAI's ChatGPT’s 800 million. In April, the gap was 3x in ChatGPT’s favour. Google’s share price reflected this, rising from $146 apiece on 30 April to $333 on Monday.
Why have Microsoft, Meta and Amazon not kept pace?
Google’s foundational AI models and a slew of enterprise deals have boosted its growth. In comparison, Microsoft’s Copilot remained flat, data from SensorTower showed last month, thus keeping its valuation flat, too. Meta, meanwhile, stopped chasing leadership through foundational AI models and has, instead, started focusing on AI real-world augmented reality gadgets that have still not found mainstream acceptance.
While Amazon made a big splash with generative AI in Alexa at the turn of the year, the company is in early days of reaping its benefits. Amazon, though, could be the dark horse in Big Tech’s AI race, with its share price up 11% in the past 30 days.
Is Apple seeing an AI-led slowdown, then?
After its initial push with OpenAI, Apple’s pivot to partnering with Google means the company is optimizing AI for its hardware business, rather than chasing OpenAI and Google in foundational AI research. Apple, to this end, hasn’t really slowed down; it remained resilient through 2025, adding $1 trillion in its market cap between April and December. The iPhone maker is still focused on hardware as its main revenue stream, even as its services revenue continues to grow.
What does this mean for OpenAI, Grok?
In December, OpenAI's Altman reportedly sent an internal ‘code red’ email to employees, signalling rising concern over Google’s sustained rise. Until mid-2025, OpenAI was comfortably regarded as the leader in the generative AI race. The gap, experts said, isn’t that obvious any longer. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the promoter of rival AI platform Grok, has been vocal in his displeasure, calling Google’s deal with Apple an “unreasonable concentration of power".
Google has been the fastest to monetize its AI platforms, signing deals with large enterprises such as Samsung and India's homegrown oil-to-telecom major Reliance Industries Ltd, among others—its market growth is a clear reflection of these deals.
Does India play a role in this surge too?
Through 2025, Google expanded its India presence. On 14 October, it announced a $15-billion data centre investment to serve its AI demand in India. It has also partnered with startups such as Sarvam, to back the development of sovereign AI models in India.
At the upcoming AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on 15 February, Google’s AI chief Demis Hassabis is expected to present a keynote address, signaling Google’s doubling-down on India as a market. This is key, as industry stakeholders, including Microsoft chief Satya Nadella and OpenAI’s Altman have all called India one of the world’s three largest AI markets, alongside the US and China.
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