This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Alphabet (GOOGL, Financials) surged to a record close of $299.66 as investors responded to stronger earnings, improving cloud demand and continued progress in artificial intelligence development. The stock has gained about 59% this year, with recent momentum driven by optimism around the company’s expanding AI capabilities.
Much of the market enthusiasm stems from Gemini 3, Alphabet’s latest AI model. Early testing indicates the system outperformed a competing model by 17% in code generation and instruction handling, while analysts highlighted faster reasoning and improved responsiveness.
The company also introduced a new version of its Tensor Processing Unit designed to handle larger AI workloads with far greater energy efficiency, a move expected to attract more enterprise cloud customers.
Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle arm, added to the positive sentiment with plans to expand testing of its ride-hailing service in three more U.S. cities, broadening potential long-term revenue opportunities beyond advertising and cloud services.
Alphabet’s most recent quarterly results supported the rally. Earnings of $2.87 per share topped expectations, and revenue rose 16% to $102.35 billion