The AI Stocks to Watch in May

While the QQQ and SPY remain flat this month, momentum continues to build around companies fuelling the AI economy — from semiconductor manufacturers and cloud giants to data centre infrastructure providers.

In this week’s roundup, we’ve reviewed insights from leading research platforms — including The Motley Fool, Zacks, Insider Monkey and Barchart — to surface the top AI stocks on their radar. The clear theme emerging? Infrastructure leadership, scalable growth, and a renewed focus on valuation discipline.

🧠 Top AI Stocks to Watch

ASML (ASML)

Market Cap: $269B | Perf. YTD: 1.5% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 14.1% & EPS Growth: 21.4%

ASML holds a global monopoly on EUV lithography machines—critical for making today’s most advanced AI chips. Its dominant position cements it as the backbone of the semiconductor supply chain.

Meta Platforms (META)

Market Cap: $1.5T | Perf. YTD: 2% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 14.1% & EPS Growth: 8.6%

Meta’s Llama 4 models now reach nearly 1 billion monthly users, with WhatsApp emerging as a primary AI interface. The launch of a dedicated Meta AI app signals head‑to‑head competition with OpenAI and Google

Amazon (AMZN)

Market Cap: $2T | Perf. YTD: -14% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 9.1% & EPS Growth: 14.3%

The cloud computing titan, Amazon remains a foundational player in the AI ecosystem through AWS — a global leader in hosting, processing and deploying AI models at scale. With its new Nova model family, AWS is broadening its AI capabilities across multimodal workloads.

AMD (AMD)

Market Cap: $162B | Perf. YTD: -16.9% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 22.3% & EPS Growth: 354%

The GPU disruptor, AMD’s MI325X chip — a strong alternative to Nvidia’s H100 — is set to roll out via Microsoft Azure, offering high bandwidth and competitive generative AI performance.

Source: The Motley Fool

🔍 Top 3 Under-the-Radar AI Stocks

Oracle (ORCL)

Market Cap: $419B | Perf. YTD: -9.8% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 7.8% & EPS Growth: 64.8%

Oracle is now a serious player in AI infrastructure, partnering with OpenAI, Meta, and NVIDIA, and supplying GPU clusters for large-scale deployments. TD Cowen maintains a Buy rating with a $210 target.

Vertiv (VRT)

Market Cap: $36.4B | Perf. YTD: -15.9% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 18.3% & EPS Growth: 185%

Vertiv provides power and cooling systems for AI data centres and is viewed as a key infrastructure enabler. Its $7.9B backlog and collaboration with NVIDIA on pre-fab AI factories reinforce its long-term relevance.

Coherent (COHR)

Market Cap: $10.7B | Perf. YTD: -26.5% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 21% & EPS Growth: 293%

Coherent manufactures advanced optical components like 800G transceivers for high-speed AI networking. Raymond James upgraded the stock to Strong Buy, citing accelerating demand from data centre operators.

Source: Insider Monkey

📈 Also in Focus

Analysts at Barchart and Zacks highlight Alibaba (BABA) for its resurgence via Alibaba Cloud’s expanding AI services and TSMC (TSM) for its pivotal role in the AI chip supply chain, driven by growing U.S. capacity investments and robust AI revenue growth.

Alibaba (BABA) - Market Cap: $280B | Perf. YTD: +45.3% 2025 | Est. Sales Growth: 6.2% & EPS Growth: 125%

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) - Market Cap: $795B | Perf. YTD: –11.4% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 26.9% & EPS Growth: 31.7%

🎯 The AI Stock Tracker

Our growth‑weighted model scans 171 AI stocks twice weekly for the ideal mix of revenue momentum, financial strength, valuation sanity, and top‑quintile relative strength.

Here are this week’s standouts: 

Applovin (APP) - Market Cap: $102B | Perf. YTD: –6.3% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 22% & EPS Growth: 82.8%

Tempus (TEMP) - Market Cap: $10.1B | Perf. YTD: 74.1% | 2025 Est. Sales Growth: 78.4% | EPS Growth: 91.4%

Duolingo (DUOL) - Market Cap: $22.5B | Perf. YTD: 52.8% 2025 | Est. Sales Growth: 33.1% | EPS Growth: 239%

🔚 Final Thoughts

As investor interest in AI continues to expand, the real opportunities may lie not just with the headline giants but in the infrastructure, hardware, and platform companies quietly powering the ecosystem. This month’s research highlights that while growth remains critical, valuation and momentum are coming back into focus.

_{Disclaimer - The information contained on this newsletter does not constitute investment advice or a personal recommendation, nor is it an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity. You should seek independent financial and, if appropriate, legal advice as to the suitability of any investment decision. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of investments, and the income from them, can fall as well as rise. You may not get back the full amount invested and, in some cases, nothing at all. The information presented is based on publicly available data and sources believed to be reliable; however, its accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed. Market conditions can change rapidly, and the information provided may no longer be up to date. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice. Data sources: S&P Global Market Intelligence}