Forget NVDA: 2 AI Stocks Crushing it in 2025 With More Upside Ahead

Shares of the most sought-after tech stock on Wall Street, NVIDIA Corporation NVDA, have surged 36.6% this year amid the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Ongoing demand for NVIDIA’s CUDA software platform, along with its competitive advantage in the AI hardware market, fueled growth. Demand for NVIDIA’s Blackwell chips remains strong, and the company plans to ship H200 AI chips to China ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. 

However, escalating U.S.-China trade tensions remain a risk and could pose a meaningful threat to NVIDIA’s future growth trajectory. NVIDIA also faces intensifying competition from rivals, including Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD and Intel Corporation INTC, as data center capital expenditures continue to rise.  

Therefore, investors may look beyond NVIDIA at stocks that have outperformed it this year and still offer upside as the AI boom continues. Notable among them are Micron Technology, Inc. MU and BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. BBAI, whose shares have gained 228.8% and 43.6%, respectively, this year. Let’s take a closer look at why these stocks are compelling buys. 

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Reasons to Be Bullish on Micron 

Strong demand for Micron’s high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips is expected to help the company deliver strong quarterly results. These chips have the inherent capacity to reduce power consumption and process large volumes of data. With AI infrastructure rapidly expanding, demand for HBM chips has accelerated.   

Banking on rising AI-led demand for HBM chips, Micron expects its revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2026 to come in between $18.3 billion and $19.1 billion. The company reported revenues of $13.64 billion for the fiscal first quarter, up 56.8% year over year, according to investors.micron.com. Analysts had projected revenues of around $12.88 billion.    

Micron expects earnings per share (EPS) of $8.22 to $8.62 for the fiscal second quarter, with its cloud memory business unit expected to perform particularly well. Micron’s expected earnings growth rate for the next year is a solid 23.5%. 

Reasons to Be Bullish on BigBear.ai 

BigBear.ai’s shares were adversely impacted at the beginning of the year due to the Trump administration’s move to curb federal spending. Reduced funding may have affected BigBear.ai’s sales, but its top-line performance is expected to improve going forward, supported by the definitive $250 million agreement to acquire Ask Sage. 

Ask Sage is a fast-growing generative AI platform that has seen broad adoption, with users including the U.S. Space Force and the Defense Health Agency. It is designed for secure AI deployment in restricted fields such as defense and national security, according to ir.bigbear.ai. Ask Sage serves 100,000 users across 16,000 government teams, and with its acquisition, BigBear.ai expects full-year sales to reach $125 million to $140 million. 

Moreover, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” could drive future growth for BigBear.ai, while the company’s robust cash position provides ample resources to support its expansion. The company reached a significant milestone toward profitability in the third quarter, and its expected earnings growth rate for the next year is a stellar 73.1%. 

While BigBear.ai has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), Micron sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks Rank #1 stocks here.

 

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research