HSBC is strongly bullish on large US tech stocks: the 2026 supercycle where AI prospects and bottlenecks coexist has only just begun

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the HSBC Global Investment Research Department published the latest research report, maintaining ratings and target prices for large technology companies, while also highlighting the challenges and opportunities that the artificial intelligence (AI) industry chain (covering cloud computing, chips, big language models and hardware) will face in 2026.

The agency rated Nvidia (NVDA.US), Google (GOOGL.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), Meta (META.US), Oracle (ORCL.US), and Broadcom (AVGO.US) as “buy”; it rated Apple (AAPL.US) as “hold”; it rated CoreWeave (CRWV.US) as “holding”.

Target prices: Nvidia $320, Google $370, Amazon $300, Apple $250, Broadcom $535, CoreWeave $44, Meta $905, Microsoft $667, and Oracle $364.

A team of analysts led by Nicolas Cote-Colisson said, “In 2025, the AI boom drove the development of many industries, but this trend took a turn in October — the growth rate of capital expenditure budgets and financing requirements at that time had already surpassed the revenue growth rate of the first phase of the AI industry chain. However, considering the pace of development of AI technology and its potential to positively boost productivity in the global gross domestic product of more than 110 trillion US dollars, we still believe that the AI industry is in the early stages of a supercycle.”

Analysts have highlighted six key trends for 2026:

The shortage of cloud computing production capacity continues due to strong demand: Analysts pointed out that against the backdrop of strong demand and a backlog of orders, the three major Western cloud computing giants — Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — all confess that there is insufficient production capacity. Given the long construction cycle of infrastructure projects, analysts do not expect this situation to change in 2026.

There are multiple bottlenecks in the development of the industry: Cote-Colisson and his team said, “Although infrastructure construction is accelerating, power supply and chip production capacity are still key factors limiting revenue growth expectations in the short term.” The analyst added that industry discussions in 2026 should focus on how to balance electricity supply and demand. Meanwhile, according to the content of the Amazon earnings call, analysts believe that the shortage of chip supply may become a long-term problem.

Capital expenditure continues to expand: Analysts said that capital expenditure guidelines for hyperscale cloud computing vendors continued to rise in 2025, and based on the current shortage of production capacity, this growth trend is expected to continue in 2026. Analysts forecast that total global capital expenditure in the cloud computing sector will increase 44% year over year in 2026.

With the rise of ASICs, GPUs still have room for development: Cote-Colisson and his team said, “Nvidia GPUs should still be the first choice for hyperscale cloud computing vendors. However, with the improvement in performance and the development of cost advantages of ASICs, their market competitiveness is constantly increasing.” Analysts expect ASIC's external chip sales scale to grow significantly in 2027. There is room for growth in both ASIC and GPU categories — analysts pointed out that ASIC's market share among cloud computing service providers will gradually increase, and the total potential market size of GPUs will continue to expand with the development of enterprise-level AI and sovereign AI.

Reshaping the competitive landscape of the cutting-edge big model market: Analysts expect that the high cost of sinking will drive the reshuffle of the market, eventually forming an oligopoly pattern dominated by a few leading companies, while retaining some small professional players. Analysts pointed out that the intelligence level of the open source model is constantly moving closer to the top closed source model, and the dispute over the pricing model for the 2026 high-end model is also likely to become the focus of the industry.

AI is rapidly integrating into the consumer side, and the core driving force for hardware growth is still data center infrastructure: “In 2026, AI technology is expected to further penetrate the smartphone field. At the same time, new hardware products such as smart glasses and AI-specific devices may also challenge traditional hardware platforms.” Analysts added that in the AI hardware supply chain, data center infrastructure is still the core engine driving growth.