Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT) to Invest $400 Million in New R&D Facility and Innovation Center in Bengaluru, India

We recently compiled a list of the 30 AI News Investors Should Not Miss. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) stands against the other AI stocks.

Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers are one of the hottest topics on Wall Street as companies across the industrial spectrum compete in a race to deploy AI technologies in their operations. The latest update comes from data center company Equinix, which recently announced that it would be forming a joint venture with GIC, a Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, to raise more than $15 billion in capital. Per the data center company, the capital would be used to expand the US footprint of hyperscale data centers. Hyperscale data centers are the largest in the industry, typically developed by technology giants based in the US, and offer massive networking capacity and often consume as much power as a big city or even a small country.

Read more about these developments by accessing 33 Most Important AI Companies You Should Pay Attention To and 20 Industrial Stocks Already Riding the AI Wave.

As technology stocks stage a comeback on the back of Fed rate cuts and AI optimism, the news coming from the commerce department in the US has buoyed investors further. The US government said earlier this week that it plans to award nearly $100 million to boost the use of artificial intelligence in developing new sustainable semiconductor materials. The funding is part of the more than $52 billion in US chip manufacturing and research grants promised by US President Joe Biden. The latest funding would go towards helping universities, national laboratories, and the private sector develop AI-powered autonomous experimentation for sustainable semiconductor manufacturing. The goal is to reduce time needed to develop new semiconductor materials that are less resource-intensive.

Read more about these developments by accessing 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock and Beyond the Tech Giants: 35 Non-Tech AI Opportunities.

Story continues

Our Methodology

For this article, we selected AI stocks by combing through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A technician in a clean room assembling a semiconductor chip using a microscope.

Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77

Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) provides equipment, services, and software for the semiconductor industry. Latest reports, from Indian news publications, indicate that the company is in the process of setting up a research and development facility in Bengaluru, pending approvals from the Karnataka government in the area. The report comes amid the US visit of MB Patil, the Minister for Large and Medium Industries and Infrastructure Development in India, where he has held discussions with Applied Materials executives on setting up a center of innovation in the Asian country. Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT) has committed to spending nearly $400 million in India over the next four years to set up an engineering center in Bengaluru as well.

Overall AMAT ranks 18th on our list of the AI stocks investors should not miss. While we acknowledge the potential of AMAT as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMAT but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: $30 Trillion Opportunity: 15 Best Humanoid Robot Stocks to Buy According to Morgan Stanley and Jim Cramer Says NVIDIA ‘Has Become A Wasteland’.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.