2 AI Stocks That Survived the March Sell-Off -- and Look Stronger Because of It

The March sell-off hit even the hottest areas of technology. However, not every tech stock was down for the month, and one pair of stocks in particular stood out as not only surviving the sell-off but coming out looking even stronger.

That pair is Arm Holdings (NASDAQ: ARM) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD), whose stocks both rose in March. The artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure market looks poised to begin its next megatrend, and these two companies are the best positioned to take advantage. While graphics processing units (GPUs) have been the dominant chips used to train large language models (LLMs) and run AI inference, the emergence of agentic AI is about to flip the AI data center on its head.

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If it seems like every incumbent software-as-a-service (SaaS) company and AI upstart is starting to chase agentic AI, it's because most are. This is the next big evolution in tech, and they won't be powered by GPUs but instead high-performance central processing units (CPUs).

AI agents require a different computing architecture from LLM training, as they need to be able to make sequential decisions and act independently. GPUs were built for pure power, not reasoning, which is where CPUs come in. CPUs act sort of like a project manager and are good at things such as calling tools (like APIs), memory management, and directing traffic.

With an expected explosion of AI agents in the coming years, AI data centers are not just going to need a boatload of GPUs, they are also now going to need a ton of CPUs as well. That is where Arm and AMD come in.

1. Arm Holdings: The new kid on the block

Arm Holdings has long been one of the leading intellectual property (IP) providers for the semiconductor industry. The company's technology is in nearly every smartphone, and its IP was heavily used in Nvidia's Grace-Hopper platform. However, with Nvidia moving more of its tech in-house with its Vera Rubin platform, Arm announced last month that it would design its own CPU chips, which received widespread applause from the market.

The UK-based company has always been known for its power efficiency and high core counts, which play right into what is needed for agentic AI. Power usage is obviously a big consideration with AI, while core counts determine how many tasks a CPU can handle at once.

Arm sees the data center CPU market growing to $100 billion by 2031 and thinks it can capture $15 billion in revenue from its new CPU chips. It is looking to generate $25 billion in total revenue for this period.

2. AMD: The market leader

Advanced Micro Devices has established itself as the leader in data center CPUs, having consistently gained share over rival Intel in this market. With the company generating $16.6 billion in data center revenue last year, which includes GPUs and CPUs, it has a big opportunity to capture a large portion of this projected $100 billion server CPU market in the coming years.

Meanwhile, AMD is not sitting still. Its new Venice architecture features a new chiplet design that will allow it to pack more cores into its chips, making its CPUs ideal for agentic AI. Meanwhile, it has two large GPU partnerships in place, set to be worth over $100 billion apiece. Between this and its CPU opportunity, AMD is poised for strong growth in the coming years.

The next big AI infrastructure winners

The AI infrastructure buildout has created some massive winners in the past few years, and CPU makers look like the next big beneficiaries. Arm is new to the physical chip game, but it already has proven CPU technology. AMD, meanwhile, is the leader in data center CPUs.

With the CPU market set to explode higher in the coming years, there is room for both stocks to head much higher from here.

Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Advanced Micro Devices. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.