In this article, we discuss the 15 AI news updates that investors are watching.
The chip wars between the United States and China are in full swing. After reports that the US was considering additional curbs on the export of advanced AI chips to Chinese companies, Beijing responded by saying it would take necessary actions to protect Chinese firms if the US escalated chip control measures. According to a report by news agency Reuters, when quizzed about reports that the US was planning to add 200 Chinese firms to a trade blacklist, a Chinese government spokesperson said China strongly opposes the US broadening the concept of national security, and the abuse of control measures targeting Chinese companies.
Read more about these developments by accessing 10 Best AI Data Center Stocks and 10 Buzzing AI Stocks According to Goldman Sachs.
He Yadong, a commerce ministry spokesman, said that these actions severely disrupt the international economic and trade order, destabilise global industrial security, and harm the cooperative efforts between China and the US, as well as the global semiconductor industry, per Reuters. If the US insists on escalating control measures, China will take necessary actions to resolutely protect the legitimate rights of Chinese enterprises, he added. The report adds that the US fears China using chips to strengthen military capabilities.
Read more about these developments by accessing 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock and Beyond the Tech Giants: 35 Non-Tech AI Opportunities.
For this article, we selected AI stocks by combing through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
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AI News Updates That Investors Are Watching
15. Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 15
Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM) is an automation technology company that engages in developing technologies to improve operating efficiencies in modern warehouses. The AI business focuses on automating supply chain and warehouse operations. On November 27, Craig-Hallum analyst Greg Palm downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy with a price target of $25, down from $45, citing the company’s accounting mishap and associated credibility hit. While the advisory’s long-term view remains unchanged, it sees too much uncertainty to defend the stock at this point, the investment firm told investors.
14. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:RKLB)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 16
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (NASDAQ:RKLB) is a space company that provides launch services and space systems solutions for the space and defense industries. It also makes semiconductors used in a variety of tech. The company recently announced that it had finalized a $23.9 million award from the US Department of Commerce to increase its compound semiconductor manufacturing capability and capacity at the company’s Albuquerque facility. The semiconductors produced by Rocket Lab are used in space-grade solar cells and other optoelectronic products that are important components for national security and commercial applications. Opto products use light instead of electricity to perform computations more quickly and with less power than its electronic counterparts use. This is important for AI use cases that require this power and efficiency.
13. Iris Energy Limited (NASDAQ:IREN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 28
Iris Energy Limited (NASDAQ:IREN) owns and operates bitcoin mining data centers. It also provides high performance computing solutions, including Al cloud services. On November 27, Cantor Fitzgerald raised the price target on the stock to $23 from $20 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. Based on the firm’s year-end hash rate estimates, Iris is trading on a lower enterprise-value-less-Bitcoin/hash rate multiple than the pure-play Bitcoin miners despite having legitimate AI/HPC potential, the advisory told investors. In addition, Iris is likely taking over the reins as the low-cost miner amongst our coverage by year-end, Cantor says.
12. Semtech Corporation (NASDAQ:SMTC)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 32
Semtech Corporation (NASDAQ:SMTC) develops, manufactures, and markets analog and mixed-signal semiconductor and advanced algorithms. On November 26, Stifel raised the price target on the stock to $65 from $58 and kept a Buy rating on the shares after the company reported a solid fiscal Q3 beat and strong fiscal Q4 outlook. New Active Copper Cable, or ACC, Copper Edge product began its production ramp for NVIDIA Blackwell platform, while the company is seeing improving business trends in other segments, the advisory told investors.
11. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 39
Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZM) provides a unified communications platform in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Following third quarter earnings results, the firm announced it is rebranding as AI-first platform. On November 26, Rosenblatt raised the price target on the stock to $95 from $78 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The company posted a strong Q3 with notable achievements, as Zoom exceeded revenue and profitability guidance and the online business continued to stabilize, achieving its lowest-ever churn rate of 2.7%. This quarter’s key win was a massive 20,000 seat contact center deal, proving Zoom’s ability to compete at the enterprise level, contends Rosenblatt.
10. Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 60
Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells, and supports various comprehensive and integrated solutions, products, and services. On November 27, Morgan Stanley maintained an Overweight rating on the stock with a price target of $154. In an investor note, it detailed that Dell Technologies outperformed most of the key metrics investors were focused on for fiscal Q3, but given that the stock is a crowded consensus buyside long, along with a Q3 CSG miss and conservative Q4 guidance, the advisory notes the after-market reaction, which it calls overdone.
9. Analog Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 63
Analog Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADI) designs, manufactures, tests, and markets integrated circuits (ICs), software, and subsystems products. The firm provides high performance solutions that integrate analog, digital and memory in a reduced form factor. This helps companies in various sectors, including the industrial, where AI is fueling extraordinary demand for high bandwidth memory and high performance compute solutions. On November 27, TD Cowen lowered the price target on the stock to $260 from $270 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. The advisory said investors may be disappointed as seasonal declines delay the GM/OM recovery, but a clean inventory position should bode well when demand improves.
8. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 68
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) markets key technologies for smart devices. On November 28, news agency Reuters reported that the latest deal of the chipmaker with the government, under which the former has been provided with close to $8 billion in government grants, restricts the ability of the firm to sell stakes in the chip-making unit if it becomes an independent entity. Latest filings from Intel reveal that Intel must keep at least 50.1% ownership of Intel Foundry if it decides to spin it off into a private company. If Intel Foundry goes public, no third party can own 35% or more unless Intel stays the largest shareholder.
7. QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 74
QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) develops and sells foundational technologies for the wireless industry. On November 28, tech news platform Gadgets 360 reported that Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi was preparing to launch a new smartphone that would feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile SoC, the latest AI-capable chip from QUALCOMM. The development comes a few days after reports in the US media suggested that Xiaomi was working on an AI-capable in-house chip for new smartphones. However, the latest reports indicate that the in-house chip development at Xiaomi is still in the early stages.
6. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 107
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) operates as a semiconductor manufacturer. On November 28, Advantech, a firm that provides embedded computing solutions, announced that it would be launching new x86 series platforms featuring AMD EPYC and Ryzen processors for edge, security, and cloud applications. The AMD processors offer up to 128 cores, enhancing performance for AI and data-intensive tasks. The SKY series servers of the former are designed for AI, cloud, and edge computing, utilizing AMD EPYC processors for high performance.
5. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 160
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a California-based technology company that owns and runs the internet search engine Google. On November 28, the company announced that it would be partnering with Chulalongkorn University in Thailand for generative artificial intelligence for higher education. Under the partnership, the duo would inaugurate ChulaGENIE, a continuous application delivery project that makes advanced gen AI capabilities safely, securely, and freely available to the entire community at the university.
4. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 193
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) provides graphics, computing and networking solutions. On November 27, news publication The Wall Street Journal reported that the demand for advanced chips from xAI founder Elon Musk was straining the NVIDIA supply chain. AI startups like xAI have deployed AI chips made by NVIDIA to train their AI models. xAI is looking to compete with other prominent AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. While the latter two are backed by Microsoft and Amazon, xAI is backed by Tesla chief Musk.
3. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 235
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) engages in the development of products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family. On November 27, Yann LeCun, the chief AI scientist at Meta, appeared on the People by WTF podcast. During his interview, LeCun made headlines by proclaiming that AGI – Artificial General Intelligence – was achievable in a 10-year timeframe. AGI refers to the hypothetical intelligence of a machine that possesses the ability to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can. LeCun has generally been skeptical of the progress AI firms are making with LLMs, once comparing the intelligence of the present LLMs to that of a cat.
2. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 279
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a Washington-based technology company. Latest reports published by tech news platform Windows Latest suggest that the company has rolled out a new update for the Copilot AI assistant, allowing users from more regions across the world to use the Copilot Voice feature for free. Previously, the feature had only been available in English speaking countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The latest updates will likely extend the reach of the AI assistant to India as well, the report contends.
1. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 286
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) operates as a technology conglomerate with core interests in the ecommerce business. On November 27, news platform The Information reported that Amazon was developing a new AI model called Olympus for video analysis. Per the report, the AI tool would be able to help search for specific scenes in video archives. This model is separate from the multimodal model for images and videos that Amazon-backed AI startup Anthropic has already launched, the report added, noting that Amazon could debut the model as soon as next week at a tech conference it is hosting.
While we acknowledge the potential of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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