Billionaire investor Bill Ackman's hedge fund boosts Alphabet stake as AI hype rages on

• Billionaire Bill Ackman's hedge fund boosted its stake in Alphabet last quarter amid the continuing AI hype.
• Pershing Square scooped up about 1.3 million of Alphabet Class C shares, upping its position in such stock to $1.1 billion.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman's hedge fund snapped up more shares in Google's parent company Alphabet during the second quarter as the company ramps up its exposure to artificial intelligence technologies.

Pershing Square Capital Management scooped up about 1.3 million shares of Alphabet's Class C shares, boosting the company's total shares in that position to $1.1 billion, according to a second-quarter portfolio update released on Monday.

The hedge fund's holdings in Alphabet's Class A shares were unchanged at about $261 million.

Pershing Square's bigger bet on Alphabet comes as the internet behemoth rides a wave of investor excitement over AI, sparked by the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Thanks to a strong second-quarter earnings report that beat analysts' estimates, Alphabet recently added about $111 billion to its market valuation. The company saw its revenue grow 7% to $74.6 billion amid increased AI efforts.

"This is our seventh year as an AI-first company, and we intuitively know how to incorporate AI into our products," CEO Sundar Pichai said on the earnings call.

He added that Alphabet has intertwined AI technologies into its search engine products, while its chatbot Bard is getting faster and smarter.

Alphabet Class A shares are up about 46% so far this year.

Meanwhile, Ackman's Pershing Square unloaded a large stake in home improvement company Lowe's in the second quarter, regulatory filings show. The hedge fund cut its holdings by 25%, bringing its total stake in the firm to $1.6 billion. It also reduced stakes in consumer-facing brands including Chipotle and Restaurant Brand International.