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

The global artificial intelligence (AI) data center market is estimated to grow annually at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.6% from $236.4 billion in 2025 to $933.8 billion in 2030. Not surprisingly, demand for cutting-edge chips, high-speed networking interconnects, and purpose-built data centers is accelerating rapidly.

Against this backdrop, here's why these two growth stocks could be brilliant long-term buys.

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1. Applied Digital

A pure-play owner-operator of purpose-built AI-optimized data centers, Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) is gradually transitioning from the capital-intensive construction phase into a monetization phase. The company's Polaris Forge 1 campus has begun operations, with the first 100-megawatt data center now online. This milestone marks the completion of the first of the three contracted buildings within the multibuilding AI factory campus.

The full 400-megawatt data center capacity at Polaris Forge 1 is expected to come online by 2027 and is fully contracted to CoreWeave. The contract represents around $11 billion in lease revenue over the next 15 years.

Applied Digital has also signed a 15-year lease with a U.S. investment-grade hyperscaler for 200 megawatts at Polaris Forge 2 campus, worth nearly $5 billion. Combined, the company has contracted for 600 megawatts of capacity across its two North Dakota campuses, totaling $16 billion in prospective lease revenue. These contracts are effectively non-cancellable, since when a customer cancels a deal, they will owe Applied Digital the full 15 years of payments. Subsequently, these deals have provided the company with unusually high revenue visibility.

Applied Digital's recent financials have been impressive, with revenue rising 250% year over year to $126.6 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended Nov. 30, 2025). Adjusted EBITDA was $20.2 million, up nearly 231% year over year. The company exited the second quarter with $2.3 billion in cash and $2.6 billion in debt, mostly due in 2030.

As data center demand keeps soaring, Applied Digital remains an impressive long-term buy.

2. Astera Labs

Astera Labs (NASDAQ: ALAB) supplies high-speed connectivity solutions that help GPUs, CPUs, memory, and networking hardware move vast amounts of data efficiently inside modern AI data centers. As AI data centers grow more dense and faster, networking has become just as important as raw computing power.

Astera Labs is already seeing strong financial momentum. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 (ended Dec. 31, 2025), the company's revenue was up 92% year over year to $270.6 million, driven by strong demand for its multiple product lines, such as Scorpio networking switches, Aries PCIe retimers, and Taurus smart cables. Switches direct and route data traffic between chips, retimers clean and strengthen high-speed data signals , and smart cables preserve signal quality over long distances . The company also reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.58.

Management highlighted that the company is already supplying next-generation connectivity products at scale, giving it an early mover advantage as hyperscalers transition to advanced AI platforms. As AI servers and chips become even more complex, they typically require more networking content (a larger volume of networking solutions).

With the company expecting its served addressable market opportunity to grow 10 times over the next five years to $25 billion, Astera appears well-positioned for long-term growth as AI infrastructure continues to scale.

Manali Pradhan, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Astera Labs. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.