We recently published a list of 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks Dominating Headlines. In this article we are going to look at where Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stands against other must-watch AI stocks dominating headlines.
The artificial intelligence story continues to grow more compelling with each passing day. In the latest news, a top executive at Russia’s biggest bank told Reuters that Sberbank is planning to collaborate with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects. The emergence of DeepSeek has already sparked a rout in the artificial intelligence world owing to its acclaimed cheap and efficient AI models. Ever since its emergence, the race towards AI supremacy has taken on a new turn.
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Russia and China have reportedly been sharing a “no limits” strategic partnership. They have talked about cooperation in AI but nothing ever came to public knowledge before this. Sberbank, a Russian banking and financial services company headed by CEO German Gref, has since transformed itself from a former state savings bank into one of the country’s leading players in artificial intelligence. The company released its GigaChat model in 2023.
“Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to conduct joint research projects with researchers from China”.
-Sberbank First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin told Reuters.
Vedyakhin did not specify who the bank plans to collaborate with, in China. Regardless, a potential partnership between Russia and China over the development of AI is in the works and will be seen as a major threat to the West. This is particularly for the US which is doing everything in its power to acclaim AI supremacy. Putin has directed Sberbank to build cooperation with China and other BRICS nations in AI to encounter U.S. dominance. Similar to China, the country is currently struggling to develop domestic computing capacity as a result of sanctions restricting imports of innovations from the West.
Discussing DeepSeek, Vedyakhin has noted that since the launch of its models, Sberbank has compared them to GigaChat MAX, its most advanced model. The comparison has led them to the conclusion that the Chinese rival was superior in scientific tasks, while GigaChat was on par or better in banking.
“DeepSeek has proven that even with reduced capabilities, it is possible to achieve quality on par with American models. This raises questions about the necessity of extreme investments when there are engineering innovations”.
-Vedyakhin.
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.
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 development team working together to create the next version of Windows.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 279
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) provides AI-powered cloud, productivity, and business solutions, focusing on efficiency, security, and AI advancements. On February 5th, Daiwa Securities adjusted their price target on the stock to $533 from $520, keeping its “Buy” rating. The firm believes Microsoft’s earnings report in January was underwhelming. Even though the company beat top-line and bottom-line estimates, cloud revenues were disappointing. The company also forecast disappointing growth in its cloud computing business with investors worrying about big spending, vague artificial intelligence revenue, and cheaper AI models from China. Its Azure unit reported revenue growth of 31% in the quarter, which missed Visible Alpha estimates of 31.8%. Meanwhile, capital expenditures were $22.6 billion, above analysts’ consensus estimate of $20.95 billion.
“We believe the underwhelming earnings release will ultimately present a solid entry opportunity in view of a longer-term horizon, partly since negative catalysts seem to have played out for now.”
Overall, MSFT ranks 1st on our list of must-watch AI stocks dominating headline. While we acknowledge the potential of MSFT 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 MSFT 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 was originally published at Insider Monkey.
