Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote may not have unpacked significant surprises, but his insights and future plans reflect on his forward-thinking approach.
Together, the announcements and innovations that were revealed at the conference, particularly in areas such as health and autonomous vehicles, demonstrate Nvidia’s commitment to leading the sector in AI and technology.
The company has also outlined a road map for the next three years, and there are significant new products planned every year. This is an aspiring target to achieve.
READ ALSO: 10 AI Stocks You Need to Watch: News & Ratings and 10 AI Stocks Making Waves: GTC Highlights & Beyond
During his keynote, Huang announced new chips for deploying AI models. These are expected to ship in 2026. However, some investors were underwhelmed, with the stock dropping more than 3% on Tuesday.
This has been an unexpected turn for the company, considering the GTC conference has been a positive catalyst for the past few years.
Here is what Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis noted about the conference.
“The rate of innovation on all fronts continues to impress and suggests a growing moat vs. peers … we were hoping for more proof points for TAM expansion and TCO advantages.”
Meanwhile, Benchmark analyst Cody Acree said in a note to clients:
“Investors’ attitude toward the speech appeared to be somewhat lethargic. Overall, we thought the keynote was about as expected, with Jensen once again providing a masterclass overview of AI.”
Some analyst firms are very optimistic about the stock.
“We have long viewed sovereign AI as an underappreciated driver of demand for AI infrastructure, and our sense coming out of this summit is that there is a long runway of AI infrastructure development ahead.”
-UBS
“With leading silicon (GPU/DPU/CPU), hardware/ software platforms, and a strong ecosystem, the company is well-positioned to benefit from major secular trends in AI, high-performance computing, gaming, and autonomous vehicles, in our view. It continues to remain 1-2 steps ahead of its competitors.”
-JP Morgan Analyst
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.
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).
10. Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 64
Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:PANW) is a leader in AI-powered cybersecurity. On March 18, Morgan Stanley assumed coverage of the stock with an “Overweight” rating and a $230 price target.
According to the firm, there is a large XSIAM growth opportunity ahead. XSIAM or Extended Security Intelligence and Automation Management is Palo Alto’s AI-driven security operations platform, whose demand has been bolstered particularly through Palo Alto’s IBM QRadar deal.
According to the firm, 63% of organizations quote AI as the driver of increased cloud investments. The analyst told investors that even though these are still early days for AI proliferation in security,” changing technology industry trends driven by AI are boosting cybersecurity demand.
9. AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 95
AppLovin Corporation (NASDAQ:APP) provides a leading marketing platform powered by AI technology. On March 20, Loop Capital kept a “Buy” rating and a $650 price target on AppLovin (APP). The firm recommended growth investors buy the stock on weakness.
The analyst told investors in a research note that even though it’s expected that momentum stocks experience downside volatility, it’s unlikely that AppLovin’s results will meaningfully exceed consensus through this year as business momentum is still early in its upward inflection.
Recently, AppLovin had been a victim of several short seller reports which claimed that AppLovin has been misrepresenting the benefits of its AI advertising platform. The company’s CEO, Adam Foroughi, has denied these claims, and several analysts such as Benchmark Co remain bullish on the stock.
8. Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 162
Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is a cloud-based CRM company that has gained popularity after it unveiled its AI-powered platform called Agentforce. On March 19, Stephens analyst Brett Huff initiated coverage of the stock with an “Equal-Weight” rating and a $311 price target. The rating was issued as part of a broader research note coverage on Application and Enterprise software names.
The analyst told investors in a research note that Salesforce was right in betting on artificial intelligence, adding that it is monetizing AI best out of all its covered companies. However, the firm also contended that its systems are older legacy tech, making growth harder in those markets. It also stated that a large part of the AI excitement is built into the current valuation of the stock.
7. Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 126
Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is an automotive and clean energy company that leverages advanced artificial intelligence in its autonomous driving technology and robotics initiatives. On March 19, Reuters reported that the company has received the first in a series of approvals from California required to eventually launch a promised robotaxi service in the state. According to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Tesla’s application for a transportation charter-party carrier permit (TCP) has been approved.
The TCP is a license usually associated with chauffeur-operated services, permitting the company to own and control a fleet of vehicles and transport employees on pre-arranged trips. While the permit is a prerequisite before applying to operate an autonomous ride-hailing service in California, a CPUC spokesperson noted that the current permit “does not authorize them to provide rides” in autonomous vehicles. It does not allow Tesla to operate a ride-hailing service to the public either.
6. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is a technology company. On March 20, Bloomberg News reported that Apple is restructuring its leadership team to get its AI efforts back on track following months of delay. The company recently reported that its AI-powered Siri updates will be delayed until 2026, an announcement that came without any explanations.
As a result, Apple’s Siri virtual assistant will now be headed by Mike Rockwell, vice president in charge of the Vision Products Group. According to the report, CEO Tim Cook has lost confidence in AI head John Giannandrea’s ability to execute product development. The report further revealed that Rockwell, who is considered the brain behind Apple’s Vision Pro headset, will be reporting to software Chief Craig Federighi. This will completely remove Siri from Giannandrea’s command.
5. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 223
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) specializes in AI-driven solutions, offering platforms for data centers, self-driving cars, robotics, and cloud services. The company has made several groundbreaking revelations at the GTC Conference, underscoring its commitment to advancing AI technology across multiple sectors.
CEO Jensen Huang said that the Blackwell architecture, having the ability to significantly enhance AI model training and inference, is in full production. The company has also introduced Blackwell Ultra, an accelerated computing platform having the ability to support even larger AI models, which will be available in the second half of this year.
Next, the upcoming Rubin chips and servers, paying tribute to the astronomer Vera Rubin, will offer improved speeds, especially in data transfers between chips. The computing system is expected to outperform the company’s Blackwell architecture.
Vera Rubin is set to release in the second half of 2026, followed by the launch of Vera Rubin Ultra in 2027. This system will be succeeded by the Feynman architecture, scheduled for release in 2028.
The company has also announced new DGX AI computers, powered by its Blackwell Ultra chips. These are designed to assist developers in inferencing large models.
In addition, new silicon photonics networking chips have also been introduced, enabling AI factories to connect millions of GPUs across various sites and reducing energy consumption. The Quantum-X Photonics chips are anticipated to be available later this year. This will be followed by the launch of Spectrum-X chips in 2026.
Nvidia has also announced a major release of new NVIDIA Cosmos™ world foundation models (WFMs) which are built to power world model training and accelerate physical AI development for autonomous vehicles (AVs) and robots.
It is also launching is also two new blueprints — powered by the NVIDIA Omniverse™ and Cosmos platforms. These blueprints will provide developers with massive, controllable synthetic data generation engines for post-training robots and autonomous vehicles.
Huang has also publicized the open Llama Nemotron family of models with reasoning capabilities. The family of models has been designed to provide developers and enterprises with a business-ready foundation for creating advanced AI agents.
Meanwhile, NVIDIA Dynamo has also been introduced, which is an open-source inference software for accelerating and scaling AI reasoning models in AI factories, and that too, at the lowest cost and with the highest efficiency.
Huang also introduced NVIDIA Halos, a comprehensive safety system integrating NVIDIA’s lineup of automotive hardware and software safety solutions with its cutting-edge AI research in AV safety.
In the humanoid robots’ sphere, NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1 is now available, known to be the world’s first open, fully customizable foundation model for generalized humanoid reasoning and skills.
These announcements are setting the standard in each sector for AI-driven innovation.
4. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 234
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company wholly owning the internet giant Google, amongst other businesses. On March 18, Alphabet, Google, and Nvidia announced major collaborative initiatives to advance AI, democratize access to AI tools, speed the development of physical AI, and transform industries.
The two companies are using AI and simulation to develop robots with grasping skills, reconceptualize drug discovery, optimize energy grids, and more. Alphabet’s Google Cloud will adopt the newly introduced NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 rack-scale solution and NVIDIA RTX PRO™ 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPU, while NVIDIA will be the first industry partner to adopt SynthID, an AI technology from Google DeepMind that embeds digital watermarks into AI-generated images, audio, text or video.
“I’m proud of our ongoing and deep partnership with NVIDIA, which spans the early days of Android and our cutting-edge AI collaborations across Alphabet. I’m really excited about the next phase of our partnership as we work together on agentic AI, robotics and bringing the benefits of AI to more people around the world.”
-Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.
3. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 235
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is a global technology company. On March 19, the company announced that Meta AI, Meta’s intelligent and conversational assistant, will begin rolling out across 41 European Countries, including those in the European Union, as well as 21 Overseas Territories, starting this week. Meta AI will be rolled out for free across Europe through the popular messaging apps–Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. All users need to do is look for a new blue circle icon and tap on it to find out more. According to Meta Platforms, this move marks their largest global expansion of Meta AI to date.
“At Meta, we believe that being at the forefront of innovation means being able to move quickly to adopt new and emerging technologies. Since Meta AI launched in the US in 2023, we’ve seen corners of the world embrace free access to an intelligent and conversational assistant, which has seen rapidly enhanced product experiences.
It’s taken longer than we would have liked to get our AI technology into the hands of people in Europe as we continue to navigate its complex regulatory system – but we’re glad we’re finally here. Over the coming weeks, we’ll take the first step in making Meta AI’s chat function available in six European languages, with a view to find parity with the US and expand our offering over time.”
2. 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. On March 19, Reuters reported that Nvidia and Elon Musk’s xAI have joined a consortium backed by Microsoft, along with investment fund MGX and BlackRock. The group has been formed to expand AI infrastructure in the U.S. as the AI arms race intensifies. Formed last year, the group initially aimed to invest more than $30 billion in AI-related projects. The consortium has now renamed itself as AI Infrastructure Partnership in which Nvidia will continue playing the role of technical advisor. AI Infrastructure Partnership has been looking to raise money, having a goal to mobilize up to $100 billion. However, it’s not known how much funds they have raised so far.
“AIP has attracted significant capital and partner interest since its inception in September.”
– AI Infrastructure Partnership.
1. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 339
Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is an American technology company offering e-commerce, cloud computing, and other services, including digital streaming and artificial intelligence solutions. On March 19, the company’s self-driving unit Zoox agreed to recall 258 vehicles due to issues with its automated driving system. According to a company filing, the vehicles had an unexpected braking issue that could cause unexpected hard braking.
The recall affects vehicles that were equipped with the self-driving software versions released before November 5. Back in May, a probe had been opened by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration based on unexpected braking which led to two rear-end collisions that injured motorcyclists. The company has addressed the issue by updating the software on the company-owned vehicles. Zoox’s filing with NHTSA reveals that the two issues have been addressed by the software update. There were no further occurrences after. Nevertheless, it has agreed to the recall “in light of NHTSA’s position and in the interest of promoting transparency.”
While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN 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 time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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