On Friday, February 20, 2026, Google CEO Sundar Pichai attended the AI Impact Summit held in New Delhi, India. The stock price of Alphabet, Google's parent company, is quietly approaching the $5 trillion market capitalization milestone and is poised to potentially overtake AI leader NVIDIA as the world's most valuable company. Judging by the pricing in the options market, this shift could occur very soon. Alphabet's stock surged 10% on Thursday, breaking through key resistance levels. The stock has gained 140% over the past year, pushing its market capitalization above $4.6 trillion. The company reported quarterly revenue on Wednesday that exceeded analyst expectations, with Google Cloud revenue surpassing $20 billion for the first time. Concurrently, NVIDIA, the current global leader in both market cap and AI, has seen its market value fall below $4.9 trillion. Its stock price dropped more than 6% over two days, influenced by a Wall Street Journal report indicating that its partner OpenAI's revenue and growth rate fell short of internal expectations. If NVIDIA fails to rebound around its earnings report on May 20—the stock has closed lower following four of its last five earnings releases—options market calculations suggest Alphabet could overtake it as early as May 15 to become the world's top company by market value. A simple calculation shows that Alphabet only needs to rise approximately 4%, reaching a share price around $401, to match NVIDIA's current market capitalization. Based on the pricing of call options near that strike price, options traders estimate there is about a 53% probability that Alphabet's stock will reach that level between now and May 15. Data from the trading platform ThinkOrSwim indicates that the probability of Alphabet closing above $400 on the Friday following NVIDIA's earnings report (May 22) is approximately 30%. Alphabet last held the title of the world's most valuable company back in 2016, when it briefly surpassed Apple to claim the top spot.