Alphabet Inc. shares climbed to fresh records on Thursday, with the Class A stock touching about US$211.50 and the non-voting Class C topping US$212, surpassing the highs set only three days earlier at US$208.49. The move briefly pushed the Google parent through the US$210 options ceiling watched by derivatives traders and reinforced the stock’s steady technical up-trend. The latest advance extends Alphabet’s year-to-date gain to roughly 11% and leaves the shares about 44% above the US$146.58 trough hit on Apr. 8. At roughly US$2.56 trillion, Alphabet remains the world’s fourth-largest listed company, trailing Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple. Investors cite Alphabet’s accelerating artificial-intelligence push—anchored by its Gemini large language model—and its newly announced US$10 billion, six-year Google Cloud deal with Meta Platforms as key drivers of the rally. Some analysts argue the stock still trades at a discount to AI leader Nvidia, positioning Alphabet as a potential ‘gatekeeper’ of the next wave of AI applications.