1. Alphabet's value topped $4 trillion, which made it the latest tech company to cross the threshold. Shares in Alphabet rose 65% last year, and rose 1% to a record $331.86 on Monday, which made its market capitalization just above $4 trillion.
Four tech companies have traded at market capitalizations of $4trillion, and only Nvdia is still above the mark. Apple and MS both crossed the $4 trillion threshold last year, which had fallen to $3.8 trillion and #3.6 trillion, respectively.
Google had launched its Gemini3 model, which was acknowledged for its speed, inteliigence and creative capabilities. It outperformed competing models on more than a dozen benchmark tests, scoring a range of intelligence categories. Gemini now has more than 650 million monthly users, up from 450 million last summer.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is by far the most popular AI chatbot, and Anthropic's Claude is praised for its coding skills. But Gemini 3's advances have made its prior works more broadly applicable.
Demonstrating Google's AI prowess, Apple announced on Monday that it had selected Gemini to power a personalized Siri chatbot scheduled to be released later this year. Apple announced that it had entered a "multiyear collaboration" with Google to use Gemini as the foundation of its own AI models.
2. Microsoft has promised on Tuesday to pay higher utility bills for all of its U.S. data centers powering AI models, which drew praise from president Trump and solved the fears that AI is pushing up electricity bills.
The software company committed to paying high-enough electiricity rates to cover the electricity costs of its data centers so they aren't passed on to consumers, by replenishing more water than it withdrew locally and paying the full property tax rate. Many of the promises were built on current practices in states such as Wisconsin, where the company is now applying to its entire portfolio. "The industry operated in a certain manner in the first half of the decade that is not an appropriate path for the second half of the decade," MS President stated, citing private land purchases as an example.
The move comes as the president has announced many proposals aimed at gaining more leverage over the company and the cost of living, which includes looking for ways to minimize the impact of electricity-guzzling data centers that are critical to the country's AI race with China. At the same time, president Trump's advisors are looking for ways to lower costs for Americans concerned about living expenses, including electricity bills.