New Delhi, Jan. 14 -- 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.

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 c...