Many artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have sold off recently, presenting compelling buying opportunities for patient investors. But folks with a sizable amount of their portfolio in names like Nvidia (NVDA -0.66%) may be looking for other ideas.
Here’s why Vertiv Holdings (VRT -2.37%) and Nebius Group (NBIS -7.04%) stand out as two exciting AI stocks — and why Nvidia is also an incredible buying opportunity hiding in plain sight.
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Nvidia is a buy even if its earnings growth slows
Daniel Foelber (Nvidia): Despite blowout earnings and impressive new product innovations, Nvidia stock is down over 12% year to date at the time of this writing. The sell-off has pushed Nvidia’s forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio down to just 26.
Nvidia is now less expensive than many of its big tech peers, like Apple and Microsoft, which both fetch forward P/Es over 29. Even Walmart has a forward P/E of 32.5.
Investors may be wondering why a company at the cutting edge of AI is such a bargain. The answer comes down to expectations.
When investors are optimistic about a company’s near-term growth prospects, they may be willing to pay a premium price for the stock. But when investors are pessimistic, they may prefer to value companies on where they are today, rather than where they are going.
Over the last year, Nvidia’s diluted earnings per share (EPS) is up 72%. Over the last three years, revenue is up over 340%, and earnings are up over 680%.
Growth at that level won’t continue, since Nvidia is now a much larger business. But this change is already reflected in analyst estimates. Fiscal 2027 EPS estimates are $5.76, which would be just 27.2% higher than the fiscal 2026 forecast.
If Nvidia even comes close to those targets, we’ll look back at today’s stock price as dirt cheap in hindsight. But what if there’s a global economic slowdown, Nvidia’s customers slash their spending, and Nvidia’s growth stalls or even turns negative? In that scenario, Nvidia will likely fall short of analyst estimates. Nvidia’s low valuation prices in some of these risks, making the stock a better balance of risk and potential reward.
And even if the stock pulls back during an industry slowdown, Nvidia the company should have no issues investing in its long-term growth plans.
Nvidia has done a masterful job sustaining high margins and brushing off competition. It has an impeccable balance sheet, with more cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities than long-term debt. The company can easily afford to pour money into research and development and continue innovating even during a downturn. That way, it can take even more market share when the cycle reverses.
Add it all up, and Nvidia remains a foundational AI stock that investors can build a portfolio around.
The market is overreacting in selling off this growth stock
Lee Samaha (Vertiv): Shares in Nvidia partner Vertiv are down 22% year to date at the time of this writing due to a combination of a market sell-off in AI-related stocks and some disappointing near-term news from the company on orders from Europe.
The company’s connection to AI comes from its critical digital infrastructure technologies used in data centers. As demand for data-intensive AI applications rises, so will demand for AI-capable data centers. This is where Vertiv comes in.
As noted, Vertiv did see some orders pushed out in Europe in the fourth quarter, but according to management, this is due to regulatory decisions related to new energy-efficiency regulations in effect in 2025 in Europe.
However, it’s likely to prove temporary, as end demand remains robust. While orders were flat year over year in the fourth quarter, they still rose 30% on a full-year basis.
Management’s guidance for 2025 reflects underlying growth: Revenue is forecast to grow 16% organically, and adjusted operating profit to increase by a colossal 25%.
The market has sold off the sector on valuation concerns, but Vertiv now looks like a commendable value. It trades at 17.7 times Wall Street estimates for free cash flow (FCF) in 2026 — that looks cheap for a stock with double-digit revenue growth prospects — and definitely cheap for an AI-related stock.
Nebius sees soaring revenue ahead thanks to its advanced AI infrastructure
Scott Levine (Nebius Group): It’s certainly not a name as easily recognizable as Nvidia, but Nebius is an AI business that can grow in popularity as the industry continues to flourish. Developing the infrastructure to support AI usage, Nebius provides investors with an indirect way to gain Nvidia exposure. It may be flying under the radar right now, but opportunities like these are where investors can benefit considerably if they have the resolve to stick with a high-risk, high-reward stock like Nebius.
While Nebius has businesses developing autonomous driving and providing training data for generative AI, the company’s AI infrastructure business represents the lion’s share of the company’s revenue — more than 50% in fourth quarter 2024. The company is working to expand its AI infrastructure presence considerably. In the coming weeks, Nebius plans to launch its first Nvidia GPU cluster (using Hopper GPUs) in the United States; moreover, the company announced a goal to deploy more than 22,000 of Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs in data centers located in the U.S. and Finland in 2025.
With demand for AI infrastructure growing in 2024, Nebius benefited from strong revenue growth last year. The company logged sales of $117.5 million. And while the company came up short of guidance, reporting an annualized run rate (ARR) of $90 million in December 2024, management seemed optimistic about growth in 2025.
In the Q4 2024 earnings announcement, Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius, stated that with “the anticipated impact of additional data center capacity and Blackwell GPUs coming on-stream later this year, I am pleased to confirm that our projected December 2025 ARR of $750 million to $1 billion is well within reach.”
Although the future seems bright, the company is still incurring losses, so there’s a fair degree of risk here. For those willing to make a speculative investment, Nebius stock could be a long-term winning pick.