5 Top Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks to Buy With $5,000 Right Now

If you're looking to deploy some money to the artificial intelligence (AI) investing realm, I've got five stocks that look like solid picks. While $5,000 is a great starting point, with access to fractional shares at many brokerages, it could take as little as $5 to buy shares in all of these stocks.

These five have led the market higher, but could reach greater heights as more AI infrastructure is built out. The future is bright for these five stocks, and right now looks like the perfect time to buy.

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is an obvious AI investment choice. As more data centers are built, demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs) is going to increase. This is playing out in real time as Nvidia continues to report jaw-dropping quarters. In the first quarter, Nvidia delivered 85% revenue growth -- beating all expectations. That pattern could continue next quarter, with Wall Street analysts projecting 96% growth.

Despite these rapid growth rates, Nvidia trades at a pretty attractive price tag.

NVDA PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts

At 23.6 times earnings for fiscal year 2027, which ends in January 2027, and 16.7 times fiscal 2028 earnings, Nvidia looks like a pretty solid stock to buy. It's cheaper than many of its big tech peers, while growing faster than most of them.

Amazon and Microsoft

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are two major purchasers of Nvidia GPUs. As both companies bring more data centers online, these purchase rates will ramp up to get them fully operational. While these two are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to do that, the demand and growth are there.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure grew 28% and 40%, respectively, in the most recent quarter. As more computing capacity is integrated into their networks, this growth rate should increase. Both companies have said there is far greater demand than supply. As a result, the growth rate for both cloud computing businesses will ramp up and stay elevated for some time, leading to strong earnings growth for both companies.

Nebius

While Amazon and Microsoft both operate successful cloud businesses, Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS) is on a different level. Nebius is solely focused on providing AI-focused computing power and is classified as a neocloud company. Its full-stack solution is incredibly popular and has attractive big tech customers (like Microsoft and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META)). Growth is through the roof, with Q1's revenue rising 684% year over year.

NBIS Revenue (Quarterly YoY Growth) data by YCharts

That's not a one-time strong quarter or a flash in the pan; this growth is expected to continue for some time as Nebius rapidly expands its footprint by acquiring additional data center sites. Wall Street analysts project 550% revenue growth this year and 219% next year. With Nebius' revenue expected to rise about 20-fold from the end of 2025 to the end of 2027, the stock has a long way to go to catch up to its potential revenue growth rate.

Meta Platforms

Speaking of Meta Platforms, I also think it's a solid AI stock to buy. Meta has dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into data centers like Amazon and Microsoft have, but it has only used this computing power for internal purposes. While Meta has released several iterations of its Llama large language model (LLM), these investments seem not to have paid off so far.

While Meta has made several improvements to its advertising tools on its social media platforms (like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads), investors want a bigger bang for their buck. That could be coming with Meta's AI glasses, which would allow AI to see and interact with the world around you. Meta has discussed contextual AI with its glasses, which could help users to learn a new skill, coach them through a task, or understand a question being asked by seeing what the user is talking about in real time. If Meta can bring a product like that to market, it could unlock a massive revenue stream that's unaccounted for in its valuation.

That could take some time, but in the meantime, Meta is still growing its primarily advertising-focused business at a solid 33% year-over-year pace and trades for less than 20 times forward earnings. That looks like a compelling risk-reward setup, making Meta a solid stock to buy now.

Keithen Drury has positions in Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nebius Group, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.