UBS gives 3 key AI stocks to own from here

CNBC

4 hours ago

UBS thinks that Nvidia , Broadcom and Micron will continue to win big as artificial intelligence demand ramps up. In a note published Thursday, UBS highlighted three major pillars that will drive AI demand going forward: model training for providers such as OpenAI, Google and Meta; consumer-face products like ChatGPT and AI overviews; and the building and maintenance of enterprise AI products. "We remain constructive on AI demand trends. We conclude that demand to train new models and consumer inference workload growth on the back of ChatGPT's popularity and the continued rollout of various products from Meta, Google, and Amazon should sustain GPU demand for years to come. This should, in turn, drive demand for cloud infrastructure, hardware and other technology that gets pulled along with this compute," the bank wrote. UBS cautioned that the enterprise adoption pillar remains the one most at risk, given companies' slower adoption, a more uncertain investment return and the specific configuration necessary to adapt AI to individual needs. However, it believes that any risks resulting from this setup should still be manageable. In the same note, the bank highlighted Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron as the stocks to own in the space. "In terms of stock calls on the back of this demand analysis, we remain bullish on NVDA and would also highlight AVGO as key Tier 1 beneficiaries of compute and networking demand, and would also highlight MU as a peripheral beneficiary of increased memory requirements," UBS wrote. Shares of Nvidia gained 1% on Thursday, reaching a fresh all-time high. Its market cap now sits at a whopping $3.8 trillion, making it the most valuable company stock in the world once again. The moves come after Nvidia hosted its annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday. CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia stopped thinking of itself "as a chip company long ago," adding it's now "working towards a day where there will be billions of robots, hundreds of millions of autonomous vehicles, and hundreds of thousands of robotic factories that can be powered by Nvidia technology." Nvidia is up 16% for the year. Fellow semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom has also notched a 16% year to date. On Tuesday, HSBC upgraded the stock to a buy rating from hold. "We were previously less bullish as we wanted to see better visibility into the ASIC customer pipeline emerge. We also had concerns about Apple share loss in the wireless segment as well as a potential VMware slowdown. However, we turn positive on Broadcom as we now believe its ASIC revenues will significantly beat market expectations from better ASIC project visibility as well as ASP pricing power," wrote HSBC analyst Frank Lee. Lee's price target of $400 per share represents upside of approximately 51% from Broadcom's Wednesday closing price. Micron Technology, another potential semiconductor winner that UBS highlighted, reported a fiscal third-quarter earnings and revenue beat on Wednesday. Micron also guided for revenue in its current period of about $10.7 billion, which is approximately 38% higher from $7.75 billion a year earlier. Following the results, many analysts across Wall Streets maintained that the momentum could continue , at least for now. Shares of Micron have surged 47% in 2025.