We recently compiled a list of the Top 9 AI News Investors Should Not Miss. In this article, we are going to take a look at where F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) stands against the other AI stocks.
The US has always perceived advanced AI chips and equipment as a matter of national security. While preventing exports to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, regulations have helped limit the quantity of AI chips that can be shipped to most nations. Nevertheless, they have also granted America’s closest ally unrestricted access to American AI technology.
President Joe Biden’s administration was the most vocal and aggressive in passing regulations that broadly restricted China’s access to cutting-edge chips and the machinery needed to make them. The administration updated the controls every year to make them more stringent and catch nations that might transfer the technology to China.
While the move has helped the US safeguard advanced computing power, it’s presenting unique challenges that, if unchecked, could spell more trouble amid the artificial intelligence boom. The fact that DeepSeek was able to effectively develop its generative AI app despite the U.S. government’s efforts to restrict AI development in China is one such issue cropping up.
Both policy experts and tech companies are increasingly criticizing the rules as they stifle innovation around AI. In addition, there are concerns that AI diffusion rules aim to establish a centrally planned global computing economy, according to a Brookings analysis.
“A decade from now, we will look back and recognize how quixotic it was for the U.S. government of the mid-2020s to attempt to limit the ability of people in 150 countries to perform fast multiplications,” wrote John Villasenor, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings and professor of electrical engineering, law, public policy, and management at UCLA.
Microsoft has already fired a warning shot, insisting that stringent AI chip export regulations could result in catastrophic results. Its concern comes amid reports China is already taking advantage of the tightened US restrictions on advanced chips and equipment. The country is reportedly urging and wooing other countries to consider its chips as it would be a better partner in the long term amid the growth of AI infrastructure. The company is already warning that the US stands to lose big business as countries shun US chips due to the stringent regulations.
The company is already lobbying the Donald Trump Administration to try to lessen some of the regulations passed in the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration. The rules ended a four-year Biden administration initiative to limit China’s access to cutting-edge chips that could improve its military prowess. The rules also sought to keep the United States at the forefront of artificial intelligence by plugging holes, erecting new barriers to regulate chip flow, and advancing AI worldwide.
That’s not the only company experiencing the impact of stringent AI chip restrictions. The software giant joins Nvidia, which has been vocal against the export controls as they hurt its core chip business.
The request demonstrates how difficult it is for Trump to implement pro-business policies while simultaneously projecting a tough stance against China. Those who supported companies that sold overseas frequently postponed or softened their actions, infuriating the previous administration’s national security officials.
For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds in Q4 2024.
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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
A network engineer gazing intently at computer monitors, surrounded by servers and storage systems.
F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 37
F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) is a software infrastructure company that provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions. Its distributed cloud services enable customers to deploy, secure, and operate applications in any architecture. Its application delivery and security solutions are also designed to manage and optimize AI-powered applications. On February 26, the company announced new additions to the VELOS product line designed to support and enhance AI workloads for service providers.
The upgraded VELOS system will come with remarkable features, such as 6.4 billion concurrent connections, 80 million L4 connections per second for firewall security, and 6 Tbps of high-speed L4 throughput. With this upgrade, F5, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV) is establishing itself as a crucial infrastructure provider for AI workloads, moving beyond traditional application delivery. The timing is vital as it addresses network issues businesses encounter when scaling AI initiatives.
Overall FFIV ranks 7th on our list of the AI stocks investors should not miss. While we acknowledge the potential of FFIV 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 time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than FFIV 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.