Billionaire Philippe Laffont Sold CoreWeave and Bought This Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Instead

Phillippe Laffont has built a reputation as one of the world's best tech investors. His hedge fund, Coatue Management, is known for making big bets on emerging technology trends. And no trend has had a bigger influence on Coatue's recent portfolio moves than artificial intelligence.

Investors can get an idea of what companies Laffont thinks stand to gain the most from mega-trends in technology like artificial intelligence by following Coatue's 13-F filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The disclosures show the hedge fund's positions in its publicly traded U.S. stocks each quarter. Coatue's most recent filing shows it sold CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV), once the fund's largest position, in favor of another great AI stock.

Here's what investors need to know.

Image source: Getty Images.

Taking gains on a pre-IPO bet

CoreWeave didn't make its public market debut until early 2025, but Coatue has held a stake in the company since 2024. It led the cloud computing company's Series C funding round that year. The hedge fund added to its position following the IPO, and combined with the stock's incredible price performance, it surged to become Coatue's largest holding as of the end of the second quarter.

But Laffont and his team started cutting its position in the third quarter before fully disposing of it in the fourth quarter. The timing couldn't have been better. The share price has collapsed since October, down about 50%.

CoreWeave is an extremely risky investment. The company specializes in AI data centers. Thanks to a close relationship with Nvidia, a major shareholder, it has access to the high-powered, in-demand graphics processing units (GPUs) companies need for AI training and inference. It signs long-term contracts with developers to use those GPUs even before it builds out the capacity. It then uses those contracts as collateral for loans to fund data center build-outs. That means it's highly leveraged relative to its earnings.

That allows it to grow quickly, but it also means that any missteps can have a significant effect on its bottom line. Investors saw that happen when it reported a delay in one of its contractors in building out data centers last fall, which led to a collapse in the stock price. However, demand for compute remains insatiable, and CoreWeave's biggest customers have stuck with it. So it's only a matter of time before it makes up for the lost revenue from not being able to meet demand.

The company saw its revenue backlog soar from $15.1 billion at the end of 2024 to $66.8 billion at the end of 2025, with a growing portion of that revenue slated for more than 48 months from now. It expects revenue to more than double in 2026, but capital expenditures (capex) are growing just as fast. As a result, it should remain cash flow negative and reliant on debt for continued growth. Still, the company expects to eventually expand its operating margin to between 25% and 30% long term.

At its current price of just over 6 times trailing sales, it might be worth taking a small position in this company with tremendous growth prospects. But investors may be better off pursuing other, less risky opportunities. That seems to be Laffont's strategy.

The AI stock Laffont bought instead

Laffont made a lot of new purchases in Q4, but one of the biggest was nearly doubling Coatue's stake in Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT). Applied Materials is the world's largest wafer fabrication equipment provider. Its broad portfolio serves just about every chipmaker across both logic and memory chip designers.

Both areas are seeing incredible demand right now. The largest logic chipmakers are spending heavily to build out capacity to meet demand for AI accelerator chips like Nvidia's GPUs. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, for example, announced a capital expenditure budget of $52 billion to $56 billion this year, a step up from $41 billion last year. Meanwhile, demand for high-bandwidth memory is finally pushing memory chipmakers to expand their capacity. Micron announced expectations for 2026 capex to exceed $25 billion, and management said it expects higher equipment spending in 2027.

Applied is well-positioned to capitalize on that growing spend. Its equipment is best-in-class, and it ought to stay that way. Applied's scale gives it a meaningful advantage over competing manufacturers, as it's able to invest more in research and development and work closely with its customers to meet their needs. As a result, Applied is positioned to grow its market share and increase its margins.

Applied Materials management expects its equipment business to grow more than 20% this year, with continued momentum in 2027. That outlook is based on longer ramp times for its customers as they build out physical capacity (cleanrooms) to take delivery of the equipment. As such, investors can expect strong revenue acceleration over the next two years.

With the stock trading for just 30 times forward earnings, it looks cheap relative to its growth outlook. 20% revenue growth can translate into even better bottom-line growth as Applied improves its margins. Indeed, analysts expect 25% earnings-per-share growth in 2027. It's no wonder Laffont decided to add to his position.

Adam Levy has positions in Applied Materials and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Applied Materials, Micron Technology, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.