3 Brilliant Growth Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for the Long Term

Is your portfolio in need of some new growth stocks? Finding them can be a somewhat tricky task these days. Most of the market's go-to favorites look overbought and overvalued, pushed to extremes by their involvement in artificial intelligence.

If you're willing to look a bit off the beaten path, though, you just might find potential rewards at prices that make sense relative to their risk. To this end, here's a rundown of three brilliant growth stocks to consider buying today with plans to stick with them for the long haul.

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1. GE Vernova

By the time General Electric decided in 2021 to break itself up into three smaller, more manageable pieces, the conglomerate was such a mess that practically nobody was interested in its future spinoffs either. Maybe they should have been. Its power-production-focused offshoot, GE Vernova (NYSE: GEV), is actually doing surprisingly well. Its third-quarter revenue of just under $10 billion was up 12% year over year, extending a lengthening trend and pushing the organization out of the red and back into black.

Most of that revenue came from natural gas power turbines, although its power grid solutions experienced the most growth by more than doubling their revenue year over year. Meanwhile, its smaller but steady wind turbine business continues to march forward at a slower but sustainable pace. Analysts are looking for more of the same in 2026 and beyond.

There's something about this relatively boring company, however, that's actually quite exciting. That's its backlog. Through the first three quarters of last year, its grid and electrification equipment backlog grew by $6.5 billion to $26 billion, while its gas turbine backlog expanded from 55 gigawatts to 62 gigawatts despite delivering lots more gas turbines during this stretch.

It's, of course, a testament to how -- and how much -- the power industry's landscape is changing as the world searches for more efficient and more environmentally friendly electricity. The advent of power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers and the continued proliferation of electric vehicles are unsurprisingly playing a key role in this change.

Regardless of the reason, GE Vernova stands quietly ready to be a hero here, offering what the world does not yet even fully realize it needs. This future status as a hero, of course, bodes bullishly for the stock in the long run, even if it hasn't budged since August.

2. Alphabet

OK, Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL) isn't exactly outside of the market's core stable of investor favorites. The market's second-biggest company (as measured by market cap) is also probably its second-most-owned name. Nevertheless, this popular ticker may still be underestimated despite its recent rally that carried it to within sight of analysts' consensus price target of $343.40. It won't be its search engine business alone that gets it there, though.

While search is still its biggest breadwinner to be sure, cloud computing, subscription-based services (including apps), and YouTube are now meaningful profit centers in their own right. Cloud computing is currently the company's fastest-growing business, in fact, with third-quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 33% that led to an 84% improvement in its operating profits. Google's cloud business also continues to grow faster than those of bigger rivals Microsoft and Amazon.

This is still just the beginning, though. An outlook from Straits Research suggests the global cloud computing industry is poised to grow at an average annualized pace of nearly 19% through 2033. Alphabet's cloud arm is clearly positioned to capture at least its fair share of this growth.

This is particularly true now that its self-designed Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are becoming a preferred choice among institutions with specific artificial intelligence (AI) platform requirements. In October, for instance, AI service provider Anthropic opted for Google's TPUs in a deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars, while Facebook parent Meta is reportedly considering Google's home-grown TPUs for its own data centers as well.

The point is, Alphabet is not only evolving and adapting to an ever-changing market but also doing so successfully. That's not nearly as easy as the company is making it seem like it is.

3. Nebius

Finally, add Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) to your list of brilliant long-term growth stocks to add to your portfolio.

In simplest terms, Nebius offers cloud-based access to specialized AI data center services. For example, it excels at artificial intelligence model training, especially a relatively new kind of training called inference. The depth and breadth of its offerings are why it's able to meet the particularly complex AI needs of the life sciences and robotics industries so well, as well as compete with bigger players like the aforementioned Google and Microsoft.

Indeed, in September, Microsoft itself committed to purchasing several billion dollars' worth of AI infrastructure service from Nebius, recognizing that it made more sense to outsource this solution rather than build it for itself. This, of course, is just a microcosm of the reason Nebius's somewhat inaugural 2025 top line is expected to be up 373% year over year once its fourth-quarter figures are reported. And this growth rate is expected to accelerate to over 500% in fiscal 2026.

As impressive as that projected growth may sound, know that there's far more to the story. Nebius is not yet profitable, for instance, and it's unclear when it might be. It's evident that a great deal of this near-term revenue growth is already priced into the stock, even if there's no clear picture regarding the company's future profitability. This all but ensures continued extreme volatility. Just use it to your advantage, if you're interested, by holding out for a decent dip.

This might help you ride out the volatility that's sure to linger after you dive in: The majority of the analysts following Nebius consider it a strong buy, and their consensus target of $158.50 is almost 50% above the stock's present price.

James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool recommends Ge Vernova and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.