From a purely business financials perspective, a large part of the reason for the sell-off stemmed from slowing growth in data centres revenue. Google’s cloud business is a huge money driver and posted a 30 per cent increase in revenues, totalling nearly $12bn (£9.6bn).

Alphabet will face investor scrutiny over its massive spending on AI when it reports earnings on Tuesday, as revenue growth at the Google parent likely slowed in the holiday quarter due to a slowdown in its advertising and cloud businesses.