Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) is the holding company for the notable search engine and cloud computing giant Google. The software firm rose to prominence at the beginning of the 21st century as a search engine but has moved into burgeoning new economy sectors, the most recent being generative artificial intelligence (AI). Google’s cloud computing arm is finally scaling in terms of profitability after years of investment. In particular, Google Cloud more than quadrupled its operating income to $900 million in the first quarter of 2024, allowing the cloud platform to emerge as a viable competitor to AWS and Microsoft Azure.
Fortunately for investors, plenty of successful technology companies are in the stock market. Some of these could very well eclipse Google over the coming years. These firms operate in similar spaces to the software giant and will see their market caps rise as they capture growth opportunities in their respective sectors. Add these to your stocks-to-buy list.
Baidu (BIDU)
Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) is a Chinese internet giant and has also been a pioneer of research into artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The software firm began its foray into AI research and development over a decade ago. Subsequently, Baidu moved to establish the Institute of Deep Learning (IDL) in Beijing and the Silicon Valley AI Lab (SVAIL) in California to focus on advancing AI technologies. While Silicon Valley tech giants get all the credit for how AI has advanced over the years, Chinese firms and their American counterparts began heavily investing in the space around the same time.
Baidu is relying upon its ERNIE chatbot, which it began developing in 2019, to build up its market position in China where ChatGPT is available. The software company also expects its AI Cloud business to grow over the coming years as AI companies within China demand more server power to develop their own large language models.
Being based in Beijing, Baidu has an immense market opportunity before it. The company is trading at 9.6x forward earnings, below all of its American internet and cloud counterparts. With that said, as China’s economy recovers, Baidu has the potential to eclipse Big Tech firms, including Google.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) is a designer of CPUs and GPUs that power PCs, laptops and high-tech servers. The chipmaker has remained in the spotlight ever since the AI craze hit the market last year. Mostly, AMD’s chief competitor, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), has enjoyed fame and record growth for providing the world with advanced chips for building AI models. As a result, Nvidia’s market cap is floating around $2.8T and continues to rise.
As AMD scales up its launch into the AI chip world, the chipmaker’s valuation will definitely benefit. At Computex 2024, a tech conference based in Taipei, Taiwan, AMD unveiled the next generation of Ryzen laptop processors that will handle generative AI workloads: the Ryzen AI 300 Series. Moreover, AMD announced the MI325X chip that will launch later in the year. While this chip is beyond Nvidia’s Blackwell chips in terms of performance, AMD’s advancements in the space are always welcome.
AMD’s market capitalization is only $268 billion. Nonetheless, as the chipmaker creates a space for itself in the AI chip market, investors can bet the valuation will increase.
Meta Platforms (META)
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), formally known as Facebook, is probably the closest entry on this list to eclipsing Google in terms of market valuation. The social media platform boasts a market cap of $1.2 trillion, while Google has a market cap of $2.1 trillion. Along with many Big Tech companies, Meta Platforms plans to build out AI tools and services to spur long-term revenue growth. Meta has earmarked $35 to $40 billion worth of capital expenditures for 2024 as the company looks to build up the infrastructure it needs to train and launch AI models. More investments into AI will probably have a higher return on investment for the software platform, especially when considering its virtual reality investments have yet to pay off. On an earnings call, CEO Mike Zuckerberg noted how monetizable the company’s AI services would be when launched at scale.
Q1 results for fiscal year 2024 came in above Wall Street estimates, with quarterly revenue increasing 27% year-over-year to $36.4 billion, while net income for the quarter more than doubled to $12.4 billion.
As Meta finds more ways to incorporate artificial intelligence technologies into its social media platforms, the software firm could see its market value increase so much that it rises well past Google.
On the date of publication, Tyrik Torres did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.