2 Elite Growth Stocks That Could Help Set You Up for Life

Investing in well-chosen growth stocks can help patient shareholders build lasting wealth for retirement. As the new year begins, companies that benefit from artificial intelligence (AI) are among the most attractive opportunities in the stock market.

Adding the following growth stocks to your portfolio could be the best move you make to start the new year.

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1. Nvidia

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has returned a mind-boggling 458,000% since its initial public offering in 1999. Even after climbing 40% in 2025, the stock is still trading at 25 times this year's consensus earnings estimate, indicating solid value supporting the current share price.

Nvidia is playing a vital role in fueling innovation across the economy. Its chips are in every cloud company's data centers. Businesses are investing in cloud services to utilize AI in building applications and extracting insights from their data. Nvidia's data center revenue surged 66% year over year last quarter, driven by demand for the company's graphics processing units (GPUs) and networking components.

There is increasing competition in the AI chip market, with Nvidia's top cloud customers like Alphabet building their own specialized chips for AI workloads. However, this is unlikely to impact Nvidia. One reason is that customers are still realizing value from older generations of Nvidia's chips. This allows customers to stretch the cost of these chips over multiple years, thereby lowering the total cost of ownership.

Nvidia's CUDA programming software enables customers to extract more efficiency from its chips, extending their useful life. Without CUDA, Nvidia's chips would have a significantly shorter lifespan, potentially opening the door for customers to consider alternative solutions from competitors.

Management noted last quarter that it has visibility into $500 billion of cumulative revenue from its current Blackwell and upcoming Rubin chips, which are expected to ramp up in the second half of 2026. Analysts expect Nvidia's revenue to grow 50% this year to $319 billion.

Nvidia has substantial financial resources, currently generating $99 billion in annual net profit, to invest in innovative solutions and drive growth for shareholders. Analysts expect Nvidia's revenue to grow at an annualized rate of 31% through the end of the decade, reaching $227 billion. Nvidia's business remains on a sharp upward trajectory that could keep its stock climbing in value for many years.

2. Palantir Technologies

Businesses are increasingly exploring how AI can improve efficiency. Using AI is not a luxury; it's a matter of survival in a cutthroat economy. This is benefiting Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR), which reported accelerating revenue growth for its AI platforms in 2025.

Two years ago, Palantir posted a year-over-year growth rate of 20% for the fourth quarter of 2023. As of the third quarter of 2025, its quarterly revenue growth had accelerated to 63% year over year. Investors are pricing in a long runway of high growth, given the significant cost savings customers are realizing by using Palantir's software.

Investors are also factoring in the potential for an expanding addressable market. Palantir has spent years building technology that understands how to draw relationships between different data sources, which helps companies build models, workflows, and applications. Palantir can leverage this technology to serve new use cases for its software, supporting strong growth for many years to come.

For example, Palantir is well-positioned to meet the growing demand for AI running on edge devices, such as drones and robots. Once companies start using Palantir, it becomes deeply embedded in how they make decisions and manage operations. When organizations run AI on remotely connected devices, Palantir will be even more deeply embedded in its customers' logistics and manufacturing operations, thereby strengthening its competitive advantage.

The company's massive growth potential has supported stellar returns for shareholders over the past few years, but Palantir is just getting started. Analysts project annual revenue to grow at a 39% annual rate to reach $16.5 billion by 2029, up from $3.9 billion on a trailing 12-month basis. This positions Palantir to scale into a leading tech giant over the long term.

John Ballard has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Nvidia, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.