We recently published a list of Top 11 AI News Updates on Wall Street’s Radar. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) stands against other top AI news updates on Wall Street’s radar.
The future of artificial intelligence promises transformative advancements across various sectors as revolutionary technology augments human capabilities and drives innovation at levels not seen before. AI is already transforming the world of machines and diminishing the need for human interaction from healthcare to financial services, retail and industrial sectors.
Amid the advancements, the new US administration is rethinking the role the public sector should play in fueling and driving the future of artificial intelligence. Letting the private sector handle the development with minimal government interference and funding is emerging as Donald Trump’s administration policy, in stark contrast to Biden’s policies.
President Donald Trump has already hinted at eliminating the 2022 Chips and Science Act, which set $52 billion to help spur domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research. Instead, he has provided a framework and environment where companies invest billions of dollars to develop and run the AI infrastructure. That’s evident in the $500 billion Stargate project.
Additionally, Trump has surrounded himself with former and present venture capitalists who have advocated for less regulation of AI businesses, such as Vice President JD Vance and AI Czar David Sacks. The White House’s plan to lessen government funding and direction of AI development is a big risk that could endanger the US’s leadership in AI at a time when Trump has stated that outperforming China is a top priority.
“There is no private sector innovation without public sector research and development,” said Calendar Nelson, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Government-funded research creates the foundational knowledge that companies later build upon — from the internet and GPS to genomics and AI.”
Over the years, government spending on research and development has always acted as a key catalyst in driving innovation and growth. According to a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas analysis, productivity increases dramatically when government research funding increases, producing long-lasting economic benefits that greatly exceed the initial investment.
On the other hand, China has adopted a very different tack from the US, which is debating the extent to which the public sector should finance advancements in AI innovation. Approximately 60% of all money entering China’s scientific and technology ecosystem comes from government-related sources, per a study published in late 2023 by the research firm Rhodium Group.
Our Methodology
For this article, we identified AI stocks by reviewing news reports, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds and we have mentioned the hedge fund sentiment around these stocks, 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).
A technician operating an automated semiconductor processing machine with laser accuracy.
Lam Research Corp (NASDAQ:LRCX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 84
Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) is a global supplier of innovative wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry. It also uses AI to power its customer platform, offering tools that automate tasks, generate content, and provide insights across marketing, sales, and customer service. Oppenheimer initiated coverage of the stock on March 20 with an Outperform rating and a $95 price target.
The bullish rating underlines Lam Research Corporation’s growth opportunities amid growing demand for NAND solutions and artificial intelligence-related demand. The analysts believe the company is well positioned to benefit from increasing demand as NAND enters a large upgrade cycle and DRAM remains a bottleneck for AI computing. Consequently, the analysts expect the company’s earnings per share to double to between $6 and $7 by 2028.
Overall, LRCX ranks 3rd on our list of top AI news updates on Wall Street’s radar. While we acknowledge the potential of LRCX 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 LRCX 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.