This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Key Points
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Nvidia has been the biggest beneficiary of AI spending among big tech companies.
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But Amazon and Meta Platforms are two tech giants seeing very strong results from investments in AI, and their future could be even brighter.
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Both trade at compelling valuations, especially compared to how expensive Nvidia has become.
Since October 2022, Nvidia has seen its value increase by more than $4 trillion. To put that into perspective, no other company is even worth $4 trillion today.
The huge surge in value for the maker of graphics processing units (GPUs) stems from a few big tech companies spending hundreds of billions on its chips every year. The four biggest hyperscalers are set to spend around $380 billion on AI infrastructure this year, and they have guided for significant steps up in spending next year.
Nvidia is set to be the prime beneficiary of that increased spending for some time, but that doesn't mean the stock will continue to climb. Market prices are based on what investors expect in the future, and the expectations for Nvidia remain high.
But two other AI stocks look like they could surpass investor expectations, pushing both companies to exceed Nvidia's value by 2030.
Can Nvidia keep climbing from here?
Continued growth in AI spending is giving investors more and more confidence that Nvidia can keep up its torrid sales growth.
The three main public cloud providers all reiterated that demand exceeds computing capacity, which means they will continue to spend growing amounts to meet their customers' needs. Meanwhile, Nvidia is selling chips as fast as it can make them. That led to a 69% rise in revenue in the company's first quarter, and a 59% increase in adjusted income.
But it's unlikely to see growth continue at this pace. All four hyperscalers are working on custom silicon solutions for their own AI training. Microsoft is reportedly planning to shift a significant portion of its spending to its Maia300 chip in late 2026. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is working on expanding the AI workloads that its custom Meta Training and Inference Accelerating (MTIA) chips can handle.
And on top of all of that, AMD is starting to show progress in catching up to Nvidia, while continuing to offer excellent price performance.
Investors should expect a significant slowdown in sales as Nvidia faces fierce competition for its share of data center servers and it battles with the law of large numbers. As supply-demand forces reach equilibrium, the chipmaker might not be able to command such high gross margins, either. That could weigh on earnings growth.
But with the stock currently trading at more than 42 times forward earnings, investors seem to think those risks aren't going to materialize. I think it's more likely they will keep Nvidia from continuing to outperform the market at such a torrid pace, limiting how much more upside there is from here.
If investors want to buy shares of a big tech company capitalizing on the growth of AI, the following two industry giants present better value with more upside. In fact, I expect they will both be worth more than Nvidia by 2030.
1. Amazon
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is the largest provider of public cloud computing in the world with Amazon Web Services (AWS), making it one of Nvidia's biggest customers. While the company was caught flat-footed as generative AI took off in 2022, management quickly caught up with the competition thanks in part to its investment in Anthropic.
Management continues to see strong demand for its AI services, with revenue more than doubling year over year. However, AWS's scale has masked that strong growth.
The cloud services segment generated $116 billion in revenue over the last 12 months. That's roughly 55% larger than its next closest competitor, Microsoft. But AWS's 17% year-over-year growth looks disappointing compared to Microsoft's 39% growth in cloud services last quarter. Nonetheless, Amazon has mostly kept its market share despite strong growth by its competitors.
What's more important is that the margin profile on AWS is extremely strong. The operating margin of 36.8% over the last 12 months is up from 33.4% a year ago. And while it took a dip in the second quarter, that's due to the timing of share-based compensation. The long-term trend shows continued improvement in margins.
Meanwhile, Amazon's retail business is becoming very profitable in its own right. The North American segment saw its operating margin climb to 7% last quarter while the international segment's margin came in at 3.4%. Strong top-line growth of 11% for both helped, which was bolstered by high-margin ad revenue growth of 22%.
The long-term trends favor steady revenue growth across Amazon's businesses with particular strength in its high-margin operations (namely AWS and advertising). That should result in earnings growth well above average.
And as its spending growth on AWS slows down, free cash flow should rise to new records by the end of the decade. That gives the company more opportunities to invest for growth, just as it has managed to do throughout its history. The stock currently looks attractive amid a small pullback in price.
2. Meta Platforms
Meta is another major Nvidia customer, but unlike Amazon, it only uses Nvidia chips for its own AI needs. In fact, it might be spending more on its own AI needs than any other company in the world. And Meta's second-quarter results are a clear example of why it's willing to spend so much.
Sales grew 22% last quarter, and its operating margin expanded 5 percentage points. For some perspective, that's faster revenue growth than both Snap and Pinterest despite being a much bigger force in social media advertising. Meta's AI capabilities are a clear reason for the outperformance.
Artificial intelligence has led to better recommendations for both advertisements and organic content. As a result, the company served up more ads and was able to command higher pricing per ad impression. Meanwhile, it's seeing strong uptake of its generative AI tools for ad creation, which makes it easier for marketers to create and test new ideas.
There are a number of other opportunities that AI could unlock. Those include AI chatbots for businesses in WhatsApp and Messenger, which could drive increased click-to-message ads in Facebook and Instagram.
And management has said its Meta AI chatbot built into its apps now has 1 billion monthly active users, giving it yet another surface to monetize with ads. It only recently started showing ads in WhatsApp and Threads. That should give it room to grow supply as demand increases due to its generative AI tools making advertising easier.
Lastly, Meta is at the forefront of development in augmented and virtual reality. AI can unlock a lot of value in an environment that's also aware of your surroundings. The company has already seen strong early adoption of its Meta Glasses with AI built in.
Shares look very attractive with an enterprise value around 16 times forward estimates on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). While depreciation of its data centers will weigh on its margins, the company is proving the investments are paying off with very strong revenue growth and by unlocking a lot of potential profits in the long run.
This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
