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

Key Points

• Nvidia’s unmatched AI ecosystem and scale have positioned it at the forefront of the multi-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure market.

• Palantir’s multi-year government contracts, accelerating commercial adoption, and sticky AI platform position it for a multi-year growth trajectory.

• 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›

Global corporate spending on data center infrastructure and compute is projected to surpass $600 billion in 2025, nearly double 2023's figure. A few technology companies are well-positioned to benefit from these massive investments, making them compelling long-term picks for retail investors.

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Here are two such high-quality growth stocks that can generate exceptional long-term returns for shareholders and are worth considering now.

1. Nvidia

Once known primarily for its gaming GPUs, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is now increasingly seen as a key driver of the modern artificial intelligence (AI) economy. The company's full-stack platform, which includes GPUs, CPUs, networking hardware, and proprietary Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) software stack, powers cloud data centers, sovereign AI projects, and enterprise AI projects worldwide.

Nvidia expects global AI infrastructure spending to reach $3 trillion to $4 trillion by 2030. This includes the AI infrastructure required to support massive training and inference compute for reasoning agentic AI, sovereign AI projects, enterprise AI, physical AI, and robotics. The company is well-positioned to capitalize on this opportunity, especially after the launch of the Blackwell architecture systems (GB300 NVL72), which are 10x more power efficient compared to previous Hopper architecture systems. Since power limitation and excessive costs are major challenges for data centers worldwide, the power-efficient Blackwell systems are being increasingly adopted by cloud service providers and enterprises to train and run next-generation AI models.

Nvidia's software ecosystem has also played a critical role in building a sticky customer base. Used by almost 5 million developers and 40,000 companies, CUDA helps improve the efficiency and performance of AI workloads -- thereby locking clients in Nvidia's ecosystem. Nvidia's networking solutions, such as Spectrum-X Ethernet and InfiniBand, are also becoming essential for building massive AI clusters.

Nvidia also differentiates itself from its peers with its rapid pace of innovation, releasing new architecture while strengthening its customer relationships. The company is already working on Rubin architecture to follow the successful rollout of Blackwell systems.

Nvidia's recent financial performance underlines its dominant position. The company delivered $46.7 billion in revenue, representing a 56% year-over-year increase, in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended July 27, 2025). Data center revenues increased 56% year over year to $41.1 billion, driven by the robust adoption of Blackwell systems and growth in networking. Gross margin was 72.4%, while operating income surged 53% year over year to $28.4 billion. The company also returned $10 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, and expanded its authorization by an additional $60 billion, signaling confidence in long-term growth.

While Nvidia's stock is valued richly at 39.5 times forward earnings, the premium seems justified for a company with unmatched scale and technological edge in the booming AI market. Hence, the stock appears to be a brilliant buy-and-hold option for long-term investors.

2. Palantir

Enterprise software giant Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) is at the forefront in helping organizations make faster and more accurate data-driven decisions. Once known primarily as a contractor for the defense sector, Palantir's AI-powered solutions are now used extensively by both government and commercial clients. This has positioned it effectively as a long-term beneficiary of the ongoing AI revolution.

In the second quarter of fiscal 2025 (ended June 30, 2025), Palantir's quarterly revenues surpassed $1 billion for the first time in history, a 48% year-over-year increase. The company has also increased its profitability, with adjusted operating margin rising to 46%, nearly 300 basis points higher than the upper end of its guidance. The company's free cash flow also reached $569 million, implying a 57% margin.

The U.S. commercial segment has become a key growth driver, driven by the strong adoption of the company's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). U.S. commercial revenues were up 93% year-over-year to $306 million in the second quarter. The U.S. Army also awarded Palantir a 10-year enterprise contract worth up to $10 billion. This multi-year contract has dramatically improved the company's revenue visibility.

Palantir's AIP differentiates itself from other enterprise AI solutions with its ontology-based architecture (mapping digital assets to physical assets). AIP integrates large language model capabilities with Palantir's ontology framework, making it more accurate, cost-effective, and reliable in resolving client challenges. Customers are seeing measurable impact -- from cutting onboarding times at banks from days to seconds to reducing fraud detection cycles from months to moments. This approach has created a sticky customer base, as evidenced by its 128% net dollar retention rate in the second quarter.

Palantir, however, is trading at costly levels. At more than 277 times forward earnings, Palantir trades at one of the highest multiples in the enterprise software sector. However, the stock can continue to grow even higher as the company delivers explosive top-line growth, achieves rising profitability, and secures long-term revenue contracts.

With $6 billion in cash on hand, ongoing buybacks, and a growing moat in AI infrastructure, Palantir may be a good pick for long-term investors. Investors can also opt for a dollar-cost averaging strategy and gradually build a position in this expensive but high-quality stock over a longer period of time.

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Manali Pradhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.