3 No-Brainer Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy Right Now

While artificial intelligence (AI) investing has been the driving trend in the market over the past two years, it gave up that leadership role to tariffs in early 2025. AI is still a huge trend and isn't really slowing down, so the lack of focus on this critical area opens up an investment opportunity to scoop up some of the leaders at hefty discounts.

I'm planning on doing that, and the top three stocks on my shopping list are Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM), and The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD). All three of these stocks look like screaming deals right now, and investors would be wise to scoop them up before the market turns its focus back to AI.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor

Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor go hand-in-hand as an investment. Taiwan Semiconductor is a chip fabricator, and its foundries produce chips that go into nearly all cutting-edge devices, such as Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs). GPUs have been a top choice for anyone involved in training and running AI models because of their superior computing ability. They can process multiple calculations in parallel, an effect that can be further amplified by connecting thousands of them together in clusters. Data centers dedicated to AI training can have more than 100,000 GPUs, and nearly all are likely sourced from Nvidia due to its class-leading technology.

However, investors are worried about how tariffs will affect AI demand.

Right now, it isn't really an issue because semiconductors are specifically exempt from tariffs. However, the Trump administration indicated it is investigating semiconductor-specific tariffs that could be issued. While it's impossible to know the rate, President Donald Trump knows how vital these chips are to our tech-fueled society, and a high rate would be unwise. The purpose of tariffs is to get companies that have taken their production capacities overseas to return them to the U.S., which is something that Nvidia and TSMC are already doing.

TSMC built a fabrication facility in Arizona and announced plans for three additional fabrication facilities -- two packaging centers and one research and design operation. This investment will total $100 billion -- on top of the $65 billion TSMC already spent in the U.S. But it's necessary because production at its existing Arizona facility has already sold out through 2027.

Some of the chips being produced at the Arizona facility are the components for Nvidia's cutting-edge Blackwell GPU, and the rest of the assembly is also being done in the U.S. by various Nvidia partners. This makes Nvidia's top GPU completely exempt from tariffs, as it's already produced in the U.S.

As a result, investors need to put tariff fears in the back of their minds for companies like Nvidia and TSMC, as they're already moving in the direction to avoid them.

Despite that, each stock trades at a discount to the levels they've traded at as recently as earlier this year.

TSM PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts

Both stocks look attractively priced from a forward P/E perspective, and investors should take this opportunity to buy them. It's not often that these stocks are priced this cheaply.

The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk isn't a play on AI hardware; it's a play on software. The Trade Desk is an advertising company that focuses on connecting ad buyers with the most opportune advertising locations. This is a perfect application for AI, as it can analyze patterns of how existing ad campaigns are performing and tweak them as necessary to ensure that ad dollars are being spent effectively.

The Trade Desk is in the middle of migrating its customer base from its old Solimar platform to Kokai, which is driven by AI. However, The Trade Desk experienced a stumble in Q4 during this migration, and it missed out on some revenue that it could have captured if it had only focused on short-term success. Because The Trade Desk wants to maintain these long-term relationships, it took the revenue loss, but that came at the expense of missing internal guidance for the first time in company history.

This caused the stock to sell off more than 30% on the day following earnings, but that drop was amplified by the broader market sell-off that occurred in the weeks following The Trade Desk's Q4 announcement. Now, the stock is down around 65% from its all-time high, but it looks like a great bargain here.

At 28 times forward earnings, it's more expensive than Nvidia or TSMC.

TTD PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts

However, the market opportunity that The Trade Desk is targeting is massive and growing, and The Trade Desk still has plenty of room for margin expansion, which will drive the denominator of the earnings ratio up, which in turn decreases its valuation. This is an excellent price to pay for the stock, and investors need to scoop up shares of this long-term winner before it's too late.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $518,599!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $640,429!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 791% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 152% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 14, 2025

Keithen Drury has positions in Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.