3 AI Stocks Poised for Long-Term Gains Despite Strong Year-to-Date Performance
Key Points
TSMC will continue to benefit no matter who is in the AI lead.
Alphabet's Gemini is already a fierce AI competitor.
Nvidia still dominates AI processors, and more growth opportunities could be around the corner.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have been volatile this year, with some companies posting big gains, followed by a recent sell-off in many semiconductor stocks.
But three companies that are still outperforming the S&P 500 year to date are Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA).
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And there are some good reasons to believe that these three AI stocks could remain solid long-term winners. Here's why.
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TSMC wins no matter who leads the AI race
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, widely known as TSMC, is the world's leading semiconductor manufacturer, making about 70% of all processors and nearly 90% of all advanced processors. Essentially, if a large tech company needs AI processors made, it's going to hire TSMC.
That's been a huge boon to the company's chip manufacturing business over the past few years (sales rose 32% in 2025 to $121 billion), and there could be more growth on the way as tech giants boost demand for AI processors. The company estimates that by 2030, the global chip market will be worth $1.5 trillion, with AI processors leading the demand.
One of the unique angles TSMC has in AI is that it benefits from all of the AI processor demand, regardless of who is leading the race. Whether OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Platforms, Alphabet, or some new AI start-up buys up piles of AI processors, they'll likely be placing their orders through TSMC.
Alphabet's AI ubiquity is already hard to ignore
Alphabet is taking a leading role in AI through its fast-growing Gemini AI model. The company has grown its user base by more than double over the past year to more than 900 million users.
While Gemini may not be as popular as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude, I don't think Alphabet has to have the dominant model to benefit from AI. Consider that Alphabet already attributed the 63% growth in Google Cloud sales (reaching $20 billion) in the first quarter to its expanding AI services.
What's more, Gemini is now implemented across many of Alphabet's services, including YouTube, advertising, Search, Google Workspace, and more. With such a massive reach among its large user base, Alphabet can play the long game with AI and slowly raise prices or introduce new tiers with more AI features to boost revenue.
And investors are already seeing Gemini directly make money for Alphabet. Apple is using Gemini as a core part of its AI model for the new version of Siri and will pay Alphabet a reported $1 billion annually to use it.
Nvidia will likely remain king of AI processors for years
After years of being at the top of many AI investors' buy lists, it may seem odd to continue beating the buy Nvidia drum. But even amid rising competition, Nvidia remains the leading AI processor company. Nvidia has about 86% of the AI data center revenue market share, leaving rival AMD with just 7%.
And Nvidia's sales and earnings continue to impress. Revenue rose 85% in the most recent quarter to nearly $82 billion, and diluted non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings popped 140% to $1.87 per share.
Nvidia's shares are also relatively inexpensive compared to many other AI stocks. Nvidia stock has a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of about 30 right now, compared to 150 for AMD and 62 for Broadcom.
What's more, I think there could be higher demand for Nvidia's processors in the near future as robotics and autonomy industries take off. Nvidia believes there could be millions of humanoid robots in the coming decades that will need high-end processors, and RBC analyst Toom Narayan believes the robotics industry could be worth $9 trillion by 2050.
When you add it all up, Nvidia still looks like a great long-term AI play.
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Chris Neiger has positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Apple, Broadcom, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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