In this piece, we will take a look at the Top 12 Trending AI Stocks on Latest News and Ratings.

Donald Trump is turning out to be the spark to take artificial intelligence investments to new heights. Just days after repealing an executive order to regulate AI risks, the US president unveiled a $500 billion private sector initiative. Stargate is the project that underscores how companies are racing against time to position themselves amid the AI revolution.

“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to [build] new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank said in a joint statement. “This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”

The new AI initiative, which includes several leading AI developers, including ChatGPT creator OpenAI, paves the way for the construction of data centres needed to power and support various AI models. With Goldman Sachs estimating that AI will represent 19% of data center power demand by 2028, tech giants are racing to construct and secure data center compute capacity.

The growing investment comes amid significant technological advancements made in AI, especially in machine learning and generative AI models like ChatGPT. Investments are expected to soar as companies look to gain a front seat amid the revolution and strengthen their competitive edge. However, it’s unclear if these investments will pay off proportionately.

The cost of training a single frontier AI model is rising exponentially, from $1,000 in 2017 to almost $200 million in 2024. The increase comes amid consistent returns to scale in AI model training data, compute capacity, and model complexity. Even though unit costs per computing operation have rapidly decreased over the same period, costs could still reach billions of dollars by 2030. By the middle of the 2030s, the hardware costs of the world’s AI infrastructure might surpass $1 trillion.

Amid the escalating cost concerns, physical artificial intelligence has emerged as the next frontier of AI investing. Companies are increasingly investing in robotics makers, auto suppliers and specialty semiconductor companies.

The AI technology began with search bots and has since advanced to “agentic AI,” which includes research assistants and customer support agents. Investors examining the cutting edge of this technology are now concentrating on interactions in the real world with autonomous devices that use artificial intelligence, such as self-driving cars, drones, and robot nurses.

“As you go into 2025, agentic AI is that next inflection point here before you hit that physical AI moment … like with everything else in the world, you have to crawl before you can walk and then run,” said CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino

The soaring investments around AI have also given rise to exciting investment opportunities. Likewise, investors are increasingly jostling for positions in tech giants and little-known companies with exposure to revolutionary technology.

Our Methodology

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.

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).

Top 12 Trending AI Stocks on Latest News and Ratings

12. Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 26

Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) is a communication services company that provides integrated products and services to business and residential customers. The stock’s sentiments have received a significant boost amid reports that the company is well positioned to benefit from the $500 billion Stargate project announced by Donald Trump on January 22nd.

The new artificial intelligence infrastructure investment spearheaded by Oracle, OpenAI and Softbank seeks to accelerate the development of data centers in the US over the next five years. The three companies will kickstart the Stargate project with a $100 billion investment in domestic data centers.

Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN) seems set to benefit from the deal, given that it has already inked a strategic data centres partnership with Microsoft and Meta Platforms. Microsoft is one of the companies also associated with the Stargate project. The Stargate project is expected to fuel demand for Lumen’s private connectivity fabric PCF solutions.

11. GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. (NASDAQ:GFS)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 22

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. (NASDAQ:GFS) is a semiconductor foundry company that provides a range of mainstream wafer fabrication services and technologies worldwide. It manufactures various semiconductor devices, including microprocessors and mobile application processors. After going down by about 81% in 2024, the company has set sights on AI opportunities in the automotive, aerospace, defense and communications sectors.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES unveiled plans on January 17th to create a new center for advanced packaging and testing of US-made essential chips. The chips to be manufactured at a New York Facility are supported by investments from the State of New York and the US Department of Commerce.

As artificial intelligence (AI) advances, silicon photonics, 3D, and heterogeneously integrated (HI) chips are being used more frequently to satisfy data center and edge device power, bandwidth, and density requirements. Additionally, silicon photonics chips are positioned to meet the power and performance requirements of critical infrastructure applications such as radar, communications, and automobiles. GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. (NASDAQ:GFS) is positioning its New York manufacturing facility to meet the growing demand.

10. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ:CTSH)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 39

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ:CTSH) is a professional services company that provides consulting technology and outsourcing services. The company has set out to empower businesses to transform their business processes using AI. Consequently, it has unveiled the Neuro® AI Multi-Agent Accelerator and Multi-Agent Service Suite.

The two new offerings should accelerate the development and adoption of AI agents. In return, businesses should be able to make divisions in real time and offer personalized customer experiences. Additionally, on January 21st, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ:CTSH) confirmed the extension of its strategic partnership with food service retailer McDonalds. The renewed agreement will focus on leveraging cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence, to enhance staff enablement, customer experience, and operational efficiency.

In addition to innovations in Cloud, Enterprise AI, and Generative AI, which are all backed by extensive domain expertise in the Food Services sector, the agreement seeks to leverage Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ:CTSH) product expertise, digital engineering, and distinctive quality assurance services.

9. Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 47

Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) is a technology company that provides cybersecurity and convergence of networking and security solutions worldwide. On January 23rd, Rosenblatt Securities increased its price target on the stock to $115 from the previous $100 while maintaining a Buy rating. The upgrade comes amid expectations that the company will deliver robust fourth-quarter results amid growing demand for AI-powered cybersecurity solutions.

The global firewall market was up by 6.7% in the third quarter of last year as companies and businesses raced to protect their networks from cybersecurity attacks. Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) is increasingly capitalizing on the growing adoption of next-gen firewalls (NGFWs), which upgraded traditional firewalls with more network filtering services. Additionally, it has diversified its endpoint security services with cloud and AI platforms to fend off stiff competition.

As one of the leading providers of cybersecurity solutions, Fortinet, Inc. (NASDAQ:FTNT) is well-positioned to benefit from a flurry of high-profile hacking incidents. Additionally, integrating AI into the company’s solution is another factor driving the stock’s momentum in the market.