Top 10 AI Stocks in Billionaires Ray Dalio and Philippe Laffont’s Portfolios

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#4 Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT)

Coatue Stake $3.05 Billion | Bridgewater Stake $210.7 Million

Applied Materials sells the equipment and services that chipmakers use to manufacture semiconductors. Coatue trimmed 1,034,719 shares and held $3.05 billion, or 6.26% of its portfolio. Bridgewater trimmed 268,492 shares and held $210.7 million, or 0.86% of its portfolio. Jim Cramer thinks there is more to the stock than its earnings multiple shows. Check what he said here.

Applied Materials makes the machines chipmakers use to build semiconductors. Without them, Nvidia, Micron and others could not produce the chips AI needs. Chip shortages are expected to last for years, with memory shortages forecast to run through 2030, so chipmakers must keep adding capacity. Cloud giants keep raising their AI spending, and asset managers are building new funds focused on data centers. In the latest quarter, margins and earnings grew faster than sales. The stock has fallen about 48% from its high, and its forward P/E has dropped from about 55 to 29.5, which gives long-term buyers a cheaper entry.

The bull case rests on AI demand lasting for years, and nobody can guarantee that. Some investors expect the boom to end quickly, and chip equipment orders can swing sharply when chipmakers pause spending. The stock is also very volatile, which makes it a poor fit for conservative investors. A valuation recovery, with the forward P/E climbing back toward 40, is not certain, and a lower multiple would cut any gains. A 48% drop can also mean the market sees a problem that the numbers do not yet show at Applied Materials.

#3 Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Coatue Stake $2.82 Billion | Bridgewater Stake $482.8 Million

Coatue raised its Amazon stake by 50% in the second quarter, buying 3,904,033 shares, and held $2.82 billion, or 5.80% of its portfolio. Bridgewater cut 2,363,230 shares, which took the position from 4.08% to 1.98% of its portfolio. The stake is still worth $482.8 million. Amazon also ranks second on our list of President Trump and Nancy Pelosi’s top picks. Read why here.

Amazon owns huge data centers full of computers and rents them out over the internet through AWS, its cloud business. AI companies need an enormous amount of computing power, so they rent it from Amazon and pay every month, like tenants paying a landlord. AWS growth has sped up for five straight quarters, reaching 37% last quarter, and Amazon says its capacity is sold out through 2027. Customers have signed contracts for years of future use, and that backlog doubled in the first half of the year. Anthropic and OpenAI are two of the biggest tenants, and Amazon owns stakes in both, so it gets paid as their landlord and as an owner. Advertising adds another strong profit stream, up 26% last quarter.

Amazon is spending so much on new data centers that free cash flow has turned negative and its debt has grown. If AI demand slows, those buildings will be expensive to keep. Much of the backlog comes from OpenAI and Anthropic, two companies that spend far more than they earn. A possible Anthropic IPO, which would put a public price on Amazon’s stake, could also price below its last funding round. AI shopping agents could skip the sponsored products that drive most of Amazon’s ad revenue, and the FTC’s antitrust trial starts in March 2027 for Amazon.

#2 Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU)

Coatue Stake $3.63 Billion | Bridgewater Stake $134.7 Million

Micron makes the memory chips that go into data centers and AI servers. Coatue raised its stake by 1,794%, buying 2,976,338 shares, and the position grew from 0.19% to 7.46% of its portfolio. It was worth $3.63 billion at the end of the quarter. Bridgewater went the other way and trimmed 1,359,038 shares, which cut the weight from 2.23% to 0.55% of its portfolio. It held $134.7 million. A Chinese memory maker could match Micron’s DRAM wafer capacity by 2029, and that is the core of the bear case. Read the full bear case here.

Micron is trading at about 5 times forward earnings, against a sector median of 21.6. Its forward PEG ratio is 0.07, against 1.13 for the sector, and on trailing earnings it trades at 11.6 times, well below its five-year average of 18.3. Revenue grew 256% from a year ago, and earnings have surged with it.

But before you get too excited about the valuation, listen to the bear argument. Bears say a low P/E on record profits is a warning sign for a cyclical stock. They point to Micron’s own history, where strong earnings and a low P/E came before a big drop at least three times in the past decade. Fabs cost billions and take two to three years to build, so new supply from SK hynix and Chinese makers will arrive later, as it did after the PC era, the dot-com bubble, the 2017 cloud surge and the pandemic boom. Even bears say the shortage may last into 2028, but they expect the stock to peak before it ends, and Micron is already well below its June high. AI spending cannot grow forever, and the big spenders already have negative cash flow, which is a risk for Micron.

#1 Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX)

Coatue Stake $4.09 Billion | Bridgewater Stake $406.6 Million

Lam Research makes the machines that chipmakers use to build chips. It is Coatue’s second-largest position, at $4.09 billion or 8.41% of its portfolio, after Coatue trimmed 601,902 shares. Bridgewater trimmed 633,005 shares and held $406.6 million, or 1.67% of its portfolio. The stock was up about 73% for the year when we last covered it. Read our take on whether it is still a smart long-term AI pick here.

Lam Research makes the etching and deposition machines chipmakers use to build wafers. Advanced AI chips need more of those steps and take longer to make, so manufacturers need more equipment even if unit volumes stay the same. Bulls also see Lam as a shelter if the AI market cools. If AI chip prices fall as costs normalize while volumes rise, chipmakers still have to buy the machines to make them. Sales grew 54% last quarter, operating margins reached a record high, and the stock has fallen 29% since June, which gives new buyers a cheaper entry.

Guidance for the next quarter points to just 4.6% growth from the last one, after 22% in the September quarter, because unusually strong China orders are returning to normal. The stock fell about 12% on the report. China’s strength may only be a timing issue as chipmakers absorb equipment they already bought, and ASML and Applied Materials both say demand there remains strong. Even so, equipment orders come in lumps, and a real pullback in AI spending would hit Lam directly.

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