Popular AI Stocks to Buy and Hold Through 2035: Five Tech Giants Positioning for the AI Revolution

The artificial intelligence market stands at an inflection point. What started as billions of dollars in infrastructure investments is now laying the groundwork for what could become a multi-trillion-dollar industry. According to market research, the AI sector is projected to expand from approximately $270 billion today to over $5.2 trillion within the next decade. As these popular ai stocks continue to shape this transformation, savvy investors have a window to position themselves in proven market leaders while the foundations are still being built.

While future AI winners may emerge from unexpected places, today’s most popular ai stocks represent companies with established advantages in AI infrastructure, software, and strategic partnerships. These five companies offer direct exposure to the coming AI boom through both hardware and software innovations.

Nvidia: The Essential AI Infrastructure Backbone

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) remains the cornerstone holding for anyone serious about popular ai stocks. The company supplies the crucial accelerator chips that power AI model training in data centers worldwide—essentially providing the computational horsepower that makes modern AI possible.

Nvidia’s dominance in this space is staggering. Analyst estimates suggest the company commands approximately 92% of the GPU market share in data centers, a position fortified by its proprietary CUDA programming ecosystem. This isn’t a lead that can be easily challenged; virtually all major cloud providers have invested heavily in building their infrastructure around Nvidia’s technology. Switching costs remain prohibitively high in this fast-paced AI arms race.

The company’s $500 billion order backlog speaks volumes about continued momentum. For investors seeking exposure to the essential hardware enabling the AI revolution, Nvidia represents a foundational holding through 2035 and beyond.

Alphabet: The Diversified AI Powerhouse

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Google’s parent company, brings a uniquely comprehensive approach to AI that makes it one of the most popular ai stocks for long-term portfolios. The company’s reach extends across billions of users through Google Search, YouTube, Android, and Google Cloud—each a potential vector for AI integration and value creation.

Beyond its consumer-facing advantages, Alphabet has emerged as a credible competitor to Nvidia in chip design. The company developed the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), trained its proprietary Gemini AI model on custom silicon, and is now offering these chips to other companies. Additionally, Alphabet maintains approximately 7% ownership in SpaceX, providing exposure to Starlink’s satellite internet infrastructure—a key component of global connectivity for AI services.

This combination of entrenched consumer products, cloud infrastructure, custom AI chips, and strategic tech investments makes Alphabet an essential diversification play within any serious AI stock portfolio.

Microsoft: Stability Meets AI Growth Potential

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) occupies a unique position in popular ai stocks—it offers both stability and explosive growth potential. The company operates Azure, the world’s second-largest cloud services platform, which is positioned to capture substantial demand as organizations migrate AI workloads to the cloud.

More significantly, Microsoft owns approximately 27% of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. This stake provides direct exposure to one of AI’s most transformative applications without the risk of owning an unproven private company.

For investors prioritizing stability, Microsoft delivers additional benefits. The company’s Windows operating system and Microsoft 365 software suite represent mature, defensible businesses with wide competitive moats. The company has also increased its dividend for 23 consecutive years—a powerful signal of shareholder-friendly capital allocation.

Amazon: Cloud Leadership with Emerging AI Upside

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) demonstrates how traditional tech giants are layering AI exposure onto existing business strength. The company operates AWS, the world’s leading cloud services provider, positioning it to capture enormous AI-related demand as enterprises build AI infrastructure.

Amazon’s strategic partnership with Anthropic, an OpenAI competitor, represents an intriguing hedge. The company maintains an $8 billion stake in Anthropic, essentially buying exposure to a leading AI company without waiting for a potential public offering. This move echoes Microsoft’s OpenAI investment and reinforces how popular ai stocks now often include ownership stakes in promising private AI firms.

Even without counting AI benefits, Amazon’s core e-commerce, cloud, and digital advertising businesses retain substantial growth runways. AI simply adds another layer of upside to an already compelling investment thesis.

Palantir Technologies: The Early-Stage AI Software Leader

Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) stands out among popular ai stocks for those with higher risk tolerance and longer time horizons. The company specializes in custom software development on proprietary platforms and has accelerated growth since launching its AI-focused platform, AIP, in mid-2023.

Palantir is winning both government and commercial contracts at an impressive pace. The primary risk is valuation—the stock trades at premium multiples that could limit near-term upside. However, this concern must be weighed against the company’s enormous opportunity: Palantir currently operates with fewer than 1,000 customers, suggesting a massive runway for customer acquisition through 2035.

Long-term investors should consider accumulating shares gradually, reserving dry powder for potential pullbacks. For patient capital, Palantir offers exposure to AI software development at a relatively early stage.

Building a Long-Term AI Stock Portfolio

The case for holding popular ai stocks through 2035 rests on a simple premise: the infrastructure and software enabling modern AI are still in their infancy. Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Palantir collectively offer exposure to AI’s future across hardware, software, cloud services, and strategic partnerships with emerging AI companies.

These five holdings span the AI value chain, reducing concentration risk while maintaining meaningful exposure to the sector’s most probable winners. While undiscovered companies may eventually outperform, these popular ai stocks provide proven business models, established market positions, and direct exposure to AI’s explosive growth potential.

For investors committed to capitalizing on the AI revolution’s next decade, a diversified position across these five companies offers a compelling risk-reward balance. The time to build these positions is now, before the full scope of AI’s transformation becomes universally apparent.