We recently compiled a list of the 9 Trending AI Stocks on Latest News and Ratings. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) stands against the other AI stocks.
AI’s Appetite for Resources and the Price of Progress
A Bloomberg report from December 13, AI Wants More Data. More Chips. More Real Estate. More Power. More Water. More Everything, explores the resource-intensive nature of artificial intelligence, emphasizing its demands on electricity, water, and infrastructure. ChatGPT and similar AI systems require vast amounts of power, far exceeding traditional services like Google Search. AI models require enormous energy, materials, and specialized hardware like GPUs. This is driving a global race for resources, with companies seeking efficient solutions, including nuclear power and synthetic data generation, the report states.
The infrastructure required to support AI, from data centers to power grids, faces significant challenges, with rising demands for energy and materials like copper, silicon, and rare metals. While AI presents a tremendous opportunity, the article highlights potential environmental impacts, talent shortages, and increasing infrastructure costs. As AI companies compete to meet the growing needs of generative AI, the global ecosystem is reshaping.
READ ALSO: 10 Companies Hoarding Bitcoin Like There’s No Tomorrow and 10 Important AI Announcements for Investors.
The Future of AI and Energy in the U.S.
Byron Deeter, partner at Bessemer Venture recently joined CNBC’s ‘Closing Bell Overtime’ and discussed the continued strong investor interest in AI, with the U.S. government’s backing further supporting the country’s leadership in the sector. He highlighted the role of energy in AI development, noting the need for nuclear energy in the U.S. due to the growing demand for computing power. Deeter also talked about Service Titan, a company providing software for industries like plumbing and HVAC, which recently went public. He sees the IPO as a sign of more companies following suit in 2025, with a strong pipeline of potential filings for the coming year.
For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. We listed the stocks in ascending order of their hedge fund sentiment taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 900 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 close-up of a server array powering a cloud-services system.
Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 44
Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET) provides cloud-based security and performance solutions with a strong focus on AI and machine learning applications.
Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) was upgraded to Buy from Hold by Stifel and its price target was raised to $136 from $95 on December 17. The firm believes Cloudflare is well-positioned to achieve sustained growth, with an expected 25%-30% year-over-year revenue increase and improving profitability. Factors driving this outlook include strong leadership appointments, successful go-to-market strategies, ongoing success across multiple business segments, and early momentum in AI inference. Stifel views Cloudflare as a top-tier asset, confident that its technology and market trends will lead to financial and stock performance outperformance. The firm said:
“We have long viewed Cloudflare as a best-in-class asset. While shares are certainly not cheap, you need to pay up for quality, and we believe self-help dynamics, and solid technology levered to many secular trends, can help Cloudflare deliver financial/stock outperformance, with Cloudflare offering the most upside optionality in our coverage universe in coming years.”
Overall NET ranks 7th on our list of the trending AI stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of NET 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 timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NET but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.