Top 10 Best Performing AI Stocks in 2023

Market Key Takeaways

• The Nasdaq 100 is up by more than +31% year-to-date as of June 7, 2023
• But tech companies with AI exposure are doing even better: the Global Robotics and AI Thematic Index is up by more than +38% year-to-date
• Unlike NFTs or web3, AI may help usher in a new era of economic productivity

Market Update: Nasdaq 100 up +31.35% year-to-date

Despite prognostications about an impending US recession, the Federal Reserve’s ‘higher for longer’ interest rate regime, some of the largest bank failures in US history, and a game of political that culminated in a non-default, 2023 has been a relatively good year for stocks.

The S&P 500 has gained +10.96% year-to-date, while the Russell 2000 has managed a +6.81% gain. The laggard of the bunch has been the Dow Jones 30, which has still squeezed out a +1.08% gain (we’ll discuss the Dow’s relative underperformance in another note). But it’s been the Nasdaq 100 that has blown past its counterparts, notching an impressive +31.35% gain since the start of 2023.

Why has the Nasdaq been able to outperform its peers by such a wide margin? The answer may not be a surprise: there’s a technological revolution afoot, and companies within the Nasdaq are benefiting – and poised to benefit in the future.

Unlike NFTs or web3, which may offer improvements over current norms, institutions, and systems (e.g. asset ownership rights; digital security; or the banking system) that are difficult if not impossible to replace in the economy writ large, artificial general intelligence (AGI, or AI in layman’s terms) offers the promise of improving productivity within current norms, institutions, and systems. It’s been this promise, that companies that innovate with AI or adopt AI, that has helped drive the latest fervor of speculation in markets this year.

Top 10 Best Performing AI Stocks of 2023

1. MSFT
2. GOOGL
3. NVDA
4. TSM
5. AVGO
6. AMD
7. SNPS
8. CDNS
9. AI
10. UPST

1) Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. MSFT develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells a range of products and services including computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and more. The company operates in three main segments: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing.

2) Alphabet Inc. Class A (GOOGL)

Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products. GOOGL offers a wide range of products and services such as search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, and consumer electronics. Alphabet Inc. is the parent company of GOOGL.

KEY METRICS: GOOGL

3) Nvidia Corp. (NVDA)

Nvidia Corp. is a worldwide leader in visual computing and GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) technology, with a strong presence in AI (Artificial Intelligence), HPC (High Performance Computing), gaming, and VR (Virtual Reality) platforms. Its GPUs, known for their parallel processing capabilities, are driving advancements in industries like robotics and self-driving vehicles.

4) Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd. (TSM)

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. TSM is the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. The company offers a wide range of services such as manufacturing, packaging, testing, and selling integrated circuits and other semiconductor devices.

5) Broadcom Inc. (AVGO)

Broadcom Inc. is a global technology company that designs, develops, and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. AVGO operates through two segments: Semiconductor Solutions and Infrastructure Software. The Semiconductor Solutions segment offers a range of semiconductor products, including application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), radio frequency (RF) front-end modules, and Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and global positioning system (GPS) connectivity chips. The Infrastructure Software segment provides a range of mainframe, enterprise and storage area networking solutions.

6) Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD)

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., is a multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California. AMD develops computer processors and related technologies for both business and consumer markets. The company operates in four main segments: Data Center, Client, Gaming, and Embedded segments.

7) Synopsys Inc. (SNPS)

Synopsys, Inc. is an American electronic design automation company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. SNPS offers a full suite of products used in the logic synthesis and functional verification phases of chip design, including a broad array of reusable design building blocks.

8) Cadence Design Systems Inc (CDNS)

Cadence Design Systems is a provider of electronic design automation software, intellectual property, and system design and analysis products. CDNS offers products and tools that help customers to design electronic products. Through System Design Enablement (SDE) strategy the company offers software, hardware, services and reusable IC design blocks (IPs) to electronic systems and semiconductor customers. The company serves G communications, aerospace and defense, automotive, industrial and healthcare, mobile, consumer, and hyperscale computing markets. 

9) C3.ai Inc (AI)

C3.ai is an enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software company that provides a platform for developing and deploying enterprise-scale AI applications. The company's platform offers a data-centric, end-to-end service to manage the entire machine learning lifecycle by combining technology to develop complex datasets, enabling clients to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence applications through ground truth data.

10) Upstart Holdings, Inc. (UPST)

Upstart Holdings Inc. is a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform that provides credit services. The platform aggregates consumer demand for loans and connects it to the network of Upstart AI-enabled bank partners. The revenue of the company is primarily comprised of fees paid by banks.