Google’s parent company hit a $4 trillion market valuation on Monday after Apple picked Google’s Gemini to power its AI products. Alphabet joins Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple in the $4 trillion club — all reached the milestone in the last six months, fueled by the AI boom and enthusiasm over tech stocks. Gemini will be used to revamp Siri, a move that bolsters Google’s position in its competition with OpenAI, which previously struck its own partnership to integrate ChatGPT into iPhones. Apple has faced criticism over its AI efforts, especially its long-delayed overhaul of Siri, with the company instead opting to roll out “a subtle, sometimes invisible, occasionally resented form of AI,” TechCrunch wrote.
China, Iran, and Russia conducted naval exercises in South African waters over the weekend, operations Pretoria said were a response to rising maritime tensions.
The week-long exercises — which include other BRICS+ members that US President Donald Trump accuses of pursuing “anti-American” policies — were fiercely criticized by many politicians in South Africa: One of the parties in the governing coalition said they “contradict [the country’s] stated neutrality.”
They also illustrate the balancing act South Africa is attempting to carry out on the global stage, aiming to defuse widening tensions with Washington over trade and Pretoria’s support for genocide charges against Israel over the Gaza war, while maintaining strong ties with, for example, Beijing, its biggest trading partner.
