We recently published a list of 12 AI Stocks Making Waves on Wall Street Today. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stands against other AI stocks that are making waves on Wall Street today.
The United States recently issued guidance threatening companies not to use advanced computer chips from China, including Huawei’s Ascend AI chips. However, China has now urged the country to “immediately correct its wrongdoings” and stop “discriminatory” measures against it.
A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce has said that the United States has abused its export control measures. He said that the country has imposed stricter restrictions on Chinese chip products based on unfounded allegations, further explaining how the said restrictions contain discriminatory measures and tend to distort the market.
The U.S. Commerce Department had issued the guidance last week, with its Bureau of Industry and Security stating that “these chips were likely developed or produced in violation of U.S. export controls.”
“The U.S. has been abusing export control measures, imposing stricter restrictions on Chinese chip products under unfounded accusations… China firmly opposes this… Trying to trip others won’t make oneself run faster.”
-The Chinese Ministry
Opposing the unilateral bullying from the US’s end, the Chinese spokesperson said that the restrictions have infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies. The country has been accused of undermining the preliminary trade agreement reached in Geneva, Switzerland.
The spokesperson further urged the country to work with China to jointly safeguard the consensus concluded in the Geneva talks.
“If the United States continues to cause China substantive harm, China will take resolute measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
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. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024.
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Photo by Microsoft 365 on Unsplash
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 317
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) provides AI-powered cloud, productivity, and business solutions, focusing on efficiency, security, and AI advancements. One of the most notable analyst calls on Tuesday, May 20, was for Microsoft Corporation. Analyst Kash Rangan reiterated his “Buy” rating on the stock and lifted his price target by $70 to $550. Rangan noted that the four-day Build conference has reinforced his confidence in the company’s artificial intelligence investments.
“We believe these investments help position Microsoft at the forefront of developer tool ecosystem (seeing some of the most promising early GenAI adoption) and help establish a robust and interoperable ecosystem for agentic AI. This will not only support consumption of AI compute on Azure, but adoption of Microsoft’s platforms and applications, all of which become richer and more dynamic with standardized, interconnected tools.”
-Rangan wrote in a Monday note to clients.
He further highlighted Microsoft’s Model Context Protocol as a “major evolution” in Microsoft’s AI ecosystem. The Protocol enables developers to integrate AI models and external systems. Moreover, Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot and Copilot Studio were pointed out as two other impressive parts of the company’s rapidly scaling AI business.
Two other catalysts are the Azure AI Foundry platform for AI agents and the focus on scaling its Azure cloud regions and data centers.
“We continue to believe that as Gen-AI moves from the Infrastructure layer to the Platform/Application layers, Microsoft is well positioned to capitalize on this shift, wherein a more capital efficient and higher margin recurring revenue model could become a reality, just as it did during the on-prem to cloud transition.”
Overall, MSFT ranks 2nd on our list of AI stocks that are making waves on Wall Street today. 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 have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MSFT and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
