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Prediction: 2 Stocks That Will Be Worth More Than AMD 5 Years From Now

The Motley Fool·10/25/2026 23:20:00
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Key Points

  • Cerebras has built an enormous chip designed to make AI compute faster and less complicated, and its second-quarter core revenue more than doubled.

  • Marvell supplies custom chips and high-speed connections for AI data centers, and it’s targeting between $70 billion and $90 billion in revenue by fiscal 2031.

  • Both stocks carry risks, including customer concentration and competition, plus potential dilution at Cerebras and a premium valuation at Marvell.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) has become a major winner in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. But Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ: CBRS) and Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL) are taking different approaches to AI that could make them far more valuable than AMD over the next five years.

Person in front of computer.

Image source: Getty Images.

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Cerebras is the more unconventional of the two, and the best place to start.

Cerebras is the AI chip challenger built for speed

For years, the AI chip race has been about building more powerful processors and connecting them to more complex systems. Cerebras is taking a different route: building an enormous chip designed specifically to make AI compute faster and less complicated.

That edge is becoming increasingly important as AI moves beyond chatbots toward autonomous agents and coding assistants. These applications don't just need compute power; they need answers quickly. In fact, Cerebras has built its whole platform around that need.

Its second-quarter 2026 results showed core revenue more than doubling year over year, while cloud revenue nearly quadrupled. On top of that, Cerebras reported $25.4 billion in remaining performance obligations (RPO), strengthening visibility into future revenue.

Management also expects core revenue to more than triple in 2027, after guiding for between $880 million and $890 million this year.

While the company hasn't offered any projections through 2031, if history repeats and Cerebras keeps roughly doubling its revenue each year, it could reach about $28 billion by 2031, compared with Marvell's target of $70 billion to $90 billion.

Plus, the company's partnerships could be just as important as its chips. Cerebras has worked with OpenAI on fast inference and partnered with AMD to combine speed with higher throughput.

It also expanded its relationship with Amazon's AWS, potentially opening the door to wider enterprise adoption through Amazon Bedrock. If these collaborations continue, Cerebras could see stronger demand for its technology without needing to build an entire software and distribution system from scratch.

That said, the company still faces several risks. Customer concentration and competition from established chipmakers are both risks to the bull case, as is potential dilution as the company funds its expansion.

For Cerebras to catch up to AMD, it would need to establish a large, defensible AI compute business and convert its technological edge into durable profits.

But speed isn't the only way to approach the AI boom. Another company is building the infrastructure that keeps data centers running.

A pick-and-shovel supplier in the AI boom

Marvell is pursuing another strategy to win a larger share of AI compute: supplying custom chips and high-speed connections that power AI data centers.

As cloud companies build out their AI infrastructure, they aren't simply buying more off-the-shelf processors. Instead, they're designing more specialized chips to handle their own workloads, improve efficiency, and reduce dependence on any single chip supplier.

Marvell is positioned for this shift through its exposure to custom compute and networking hardware.

The company's relationships with major cloud providers matter to the investment case. For example, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms are among the hyperscalers investing heavily in AI infrastructure. That creates opportunities for Marvell to supply the chips and connectivity that tie these systems together.

Optical networking is also becoming an important growth driver at Marvell. As AI clusters expand, moving data between chips and servers becomes more challenging.

That means Marvell's expertise in optical technology and data center connectivity gives it exposure to this growing bottleneck in data center infrastructure.

The main risk now is that Marvell's growth targets depend on a small group of large customers. Meanwhile, custom chip programs can be delayed, customers can switch suppliers, and competition from other chipmakers could put pressure on margins.

But if Marvell scales to anywhere near management's long-term ambitions, it could become more valuable than AMD within five years. In fact, the company's goal is to 10x its revenue by fiscal 2031, from just $8.2 billion in fiscal 2026 to $70 billion-$90 billion.

Plus, by participating in several layers of the AI build-out, Marvell could very well achieve this ambitious target.

Of course, the market already has a view on how much growth to expect.

Can these two stocks outgrow AMD over the next five years?

AMD's market cap is roughly $829 billion, compared with $195 billion for Marvell and $26 billion for Cerebras. That means both have a lot of ground to make up.

Marvell looks like the best bet as it already has an established business and relationships with the biggest cloud companies worldwide.

Cerebras is the high-risk, high-reward pick, with faster growth but also customer concentration, dilution, and a high valuation.

Either could eventually surpass AMD based on their ambitions, but Cerebras could face a bumpier ride.

Rick Orford has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Marvell Technology, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.