Anthropic

Semiconductor companies, also known as 'chipmakers', are soaring on the Stock Market. They rub shoulders and speak as equals with the world's most valuable companies, with Nvidia as their benchmark. Semiconductor companies are the base or foundation of artificial intelligence (AI). Software like ChatGPT and Gemini or AI agents could not exist without the advanced chips and hardware they provide, whether with the machines or components to create them or with their final assembly. The impact on the Stock Market is total. 16 companies, most of them technological, boast a market capitalization of over one trillion dollars, and six of them are semiconductor companies.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) entered the club for the first time this week. Its assault on this prestigious place on the Stock Market is due to the growth of AI agents. The final boost comes from Muse, Meta's first AI agent. These agents largely depend on applications that require significant processing capacity. Experts point out that there are only two clear providers: Intel and AMD. Intel seemed to be falling behind in the AI race, and investors penalized it harshly, but its extensive development requires Intel's CPUs to manage and move data efficiently.

That's why it has risen more than 230% on the Stock Market this year, and its market capitalization is approaching 645 billion. AMD's milestone continues the historic path of 'chipmakers' initiated by Nvidia (which is now the world's most valuable company on the Stock Market), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Broadcom, Micron Technology, and Samsung Electronics (see chart). The market is closely monitoring these companies after the great AI gurus, who ultimately lead the sector's main companies, indicated that a halt in their development is necessary due to the negative implications they could have for humanity.

Sector experts and strategists believe that neither the United States nor China will stop their race to be leaders in this area, while these listed companies, analysts assure, have their order books more than covered for the coming years. "Unlike some previous speculative episodes, the current rally is supported by earnings and demand. After the latest wave of selling, we believe that current valuations are attractive and that the long-term drivers of the AI cycle remain essentially intact," says Alex Stauffacher of Vontobel. Alex King of Wellington Management believes that now is the time to monitor "earnings expectations, the market structure with the arrival of leveraged ETFs, and the profitability gap between different AI-linked stocks, due to the review of winners and losers in the next phase of adoption of this technology."