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Google\u2019s transition into the era of\u00a0artificial intelligence<\/a>\u00a0continued to pay off for its corporate parent,\u00a0Alphabet Inc.<\/a>, which on Wednesday announced another quarter of stellar growth that helped to more than double its already lofty market value during the past year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Alphabet earned $62.6 billion, or $5.11 per share, during the January-March period, an 81% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 22% from last year to $109.9 billion. Both numbers easily surpassed the analyst projections that steer investors.<\/p>\n Alphabet\u2019s stock price rose more than 6% in extended trading after the numbers came out, setting up the shares to hit a new high during Thursday\u2019s regular session. The company\u2019s market value currently stands at $4.2 trillion, up from $1.9 trillion just a year ago.<\/p>\n The performance in the past quarter prompted Alphabet CEO\u00a0Sundar Pichai<\/a>\u00a0to celebrate the huge bets that the company has been placing on AI technology during the past three years. Those investments, Pichai said, \u201care lighting up every part of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As usual, digital ads fueled by Google\u2019s dominant search engine propelled the growth as revenue from those operations shot up 16% from last year\u2019s first quarter. It marked the fourth straight quarter that Google\u2019s ad sales increased by more than 10% from the previous year.<\/p>\n