Alphabet’s stock is climbing toward a $5 trillion market capitalization, narrowing its gap with Nvidia to under $200 billion. The surge follows a new AI safety agreement with Microsoft and xAI, and a strong first-quarter earnings report that saw revenue beat estimates by a wide margin. Wall Street analysts have responded with significant price target increases, citing accelerating cloud growth and the monetization of AI investments through services like the Gemini API.
Alphabet stock has rebounded strongly in 2026, with its year-to-date gain exceeding 70%. The company’s market cap now stands at approximately $4.6 trillion, putting it within $200 billion of Nvidia.
A recent climb was attributed to a joint deal with Microsoft and xAI. The companies agreed with the U.S. Commerce Department to share early AI programs for security evaluation before public release.
The company reported first-quarter revenue of $109.9 billion, which was a 22% year-over-year increase. Earnings per share of $5.11 far exceeded the $2.63 consensus estimate.
Google Cloud revenue surged 63% to $20 billion during the quarter. The cloud division’s backlog nearly doubled to $460 billion.
Capital expenditures doubled to $35.7 billion in the first quarter as management deployed capital into AI capacity. Concerns over this spending were offset by accelerating cloud growth and a 60% surge in Gemini API usage.
Following the earnings, JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth raised his price target from $395 to $460. “Alphabet has moved beyond the experimental phase in AI,” Anmuth wrote, noting the Gemini API now processes over 16 billion tokens per minute.
Pivotal Research also raised its target to $470, citing several metrics that beat its estimates. Search revenue growth accelerated to 19% year-over-year, ahead of the firm’s 15% forecast.
The analyst rating for GOOGL from 72 analysts currently sits at strong buy. The company’s forecast for 2026 revenue is viewed as a bullish case for the stock.
