3 Growth Stocks on Track to Reach a $300 Billion Valuation by 2026

Key Points

• AMD has a big opportunity ahead related to AI inference.

• Philip Morris International is seeing strong growth driven by its smokeless portfolio.

• Salesforce is working to tap into the opportunities related to advances in agentic AI.

• 10 stocks we like better than Advanced Micro Devices ›

While there is a lot of talk and attention focused on trillion-dollar companies, the fact of the matter is that, as of Sept. 3, only 34 publicly traded companies (out of more than 10,500 internationally) had market caps of $300 billion or more. That suggests there is just as much opportunity ahead for these "relatively smaller" companies.

Let's look at three growth companies that should exceed that $300 billion mark within the next year.

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1. Advanced Micro Devices

At the end of August, Advanced Micro Devices' (NASDAQ: AMD) market cap sat at about $263 billion, leaving it roughly $37 billion, or 12.3%, shy of the $300 billion mark. Given how the artificial intelligence (AI) market is shifting, the company should soon reach the $300 billion club and be poised to reach $400 billion in the coming years.

For years, rival Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has owned the training side of AI, but inference is set to become much bigger over time, and that's where AMD is making some inroads. One of the largest AI companies is already running a significant amount of inference traffic with AMD, and seven of the top 10 AI companies already deploy its graphics processing units (GPUs).

While AMD's ROCm software continues to trail Nvidia's CUDA, it's been getting better. Its latest update, ROCm 7, is particularly geared toward inference. Meanwhile, the company is also part of the UALink Consortium, which is working to break Nvidia's NVLink advantage through the development of an open-source interconnect system. This would allow customers to more easily mix AI chips with each other, and not be as locked in with Nvidia's chips.

Beyond GPUs, AMD's central processing units (CPUs) keep taking share in the data center space. This market isn't as large as the one for GPUs, but it is also growing rapidly. It also has a solid foundation with PC CPUs, as well.

Getting to a $300 billion market cap for AMD within the next year shouldn't be difficult, and from there $400 billion and $500 billion could be in reach if the AI infrastructure buildout continues to ramp up.

2. Philip Morris International

Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) has a market cap of around $256 billion, leaving it with a $44 billion, or about a 14.7%, climb to reach $300 billion. For the fast-growing tobacco company, it should be able to hit that within the next year, considering how quickly its smokeless portfolio is growing.

Philip Morris's Zyn nicotine pouches have been helping power the company's growth, with U.S. volumes up 40% last quarter. It's also expanding Zyn internationally, with the product now in 44 countries. Iqos, its heated tobacco product, meanwhile, keeps gaining share in Europe and Japan, while making inroads in other international markets.

These two products also bring better margins, with Zyn delivering six times the contribution levels of cigarettes, and Iqos being more than double. Between the strong sales and higher margins, that's a nice earnings driver.

The stock dipped after its Q2 results on cigarette volume concerns, but half of that pressure was tied to a temporary Turkish supply chain issue. Without cigarette exposure to the rapidly declining U.S. market, the company is still able to keep volumes relatively flat while having strong pricing power.

Given the strength of Zyn and Iqos, along with an attractive valuation, Philip Morris should be able to join the $300 billion market cap club by the end of next year. Meanwhile, if the company can successfully bring Iqos to the U.S. in the coming years, reaching a $400 billion market cap isn't out of the question in the years ahead.

3. Salesforce

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) had a $243 billion market cap at the end of August, so it needs a $57 billion, or 19% gain, to hit $300 billion. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) stocks have generally struggled the past couple of years as investors question the impact AI will have on their businesses. However, if the company's new AI agent platform, Agentforce, continues to gain traction, hitting a $300 billion cap within the next year looks attainable.

Agentforce has already landed over 4,000 paying customers in the months following its launch. The platform's ADAM framework ties agents, data, apps, and metadata into one system, making it easier for companies to deploy AI agents across workflows. It also added a marketplace with 200 partners and offers prebuilt agents plus no-code tools so customers can build their own.

Salesforce is also using its platform internally to help reduce costs. The company recently said that it has cut nearly half its customer support staff, with AI agents now handling 50% of conversations. At the same time, it's said that customer satisfaction hasn't slipped. This admission helps the company reduce costs, while also being a nice marketing tool for Agentforce.

Agentic AI is a competitive field, but Salesforce has the ecosystem and customer base to scale it faster than most of its rivals. The stock isn't expensive, so any solid AI momentum should be able to comfortably push its market cap past $300 billion by the end of 2026.

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Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Philip Morris International and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends Philip Morris International. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.