We recently compiled a list of the 10 AI News You Probably Missed. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM) stands against the other AI stocks.
AI Boosts Data Center Market to New Heights
According to Synergy Research Group, data center M&A activity set a new record in 2024, with deals totaling $57 billion, compared to the previous high of $52 billion in 2022. While 2023 saw a sharp decline to $26 billion, the rebound in 2024 included two major equity investments in Vantage Data Centers worth $9.2 billion combined. Moreover, equity investments in data center solutions providers, EdgeConneX and DataBank contributed to the rise. Private equity played a dominant role, accounting for 80-90% of deal values since 2021. With $29 billion in pending deals and a $15 billion future pipeline, the trend is expected to continue in 2025, fueled by increasing demand for cloud services, digital platforms, and generative AI.
Moreover, the firm believes that global spending on data center hardware and software in 2024 probably rose by 34%, reaching a record $282 billion. Public cloud infrastructure spending, up 48%, now makes up 55% of the market, due to the increasing demand for GPUs to support generative AI workloads. Enterprise spending also saw a significant 21% increase after years of marginal growth. According to Synergy, public cloud spending is expected to grow further and could reach 65% of the market within five years.
READ ALSO: 10 AI Stocks Making Waves on Wall Street and Top 10 AI Stocks on Wall Street’s Radar.
U.S. Boosts AI Infrastructure with New Executive Order
As the global AI infrastructure landscape is rapidly evolving, the U.S. is positioning itself at the forefront. On January 14, former President Joe Biden signed an executive order to boost U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence by fast-tracking the development of domestic AI infrastructure. The order directed the Department of Defense and Department of Energy to lease federal sites for gigawatt-scale AI data centers powered by clean energy, with developers covering all costs.
Requirements include using U.S.-manufactured semiconductors, adhering to labor standards, and ensuring AI safety and national security. Agencies will streamline permits, upgrade energy transmission, and support global AI infrastructure expansion while promoting clean energy technologies.
For this article, we selected AI stocks by reviewing news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 900 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).
A robotic arm holding a semiconductor chip, emphasizing the precision and quality of the company’s production equipment.
Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 38
Arm Holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARM) designs and licenses microprocessors, system IPs, and related technologies for semiconductor companies, supporting various industries including automotive, computing, and IoT.
Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) has appointed Eric Hayes as executive vice president of Operations, effective immediately. Hayes will oversee the execution of operational activities across multiple products, reporting to Arm CEO Rene Haas. Hayes brings extensive experience, having previously served as CEO of Fungible Inc. before its acquisition by Microsoft in 2023. He also held leadership roles at Inphi Corporation, Marvell Technology, Cavium, Inc., and Broadcom Inc. Hayes will focus on aligning operational activities as Arm expands its portfolio, especially in the growing AI market. Arm CEO Rene Haas said:
“Aligning on the operational activities across products and solutions is critical as we continue to diversify our portfolio and meet the increasingly complex demands of AI… Eric is a long-time industry veteran who brings extensive experience in operations and the strategic planning that will advance innovation across the ecosystem as we build the future of computing on Arm.”
Overall ARM ranks 6th on our list of the AI stocks that investors probably missed. While we acknowledge the potential of ARM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that 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 ARM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
