AI spending dominates the top priority of enterprises! The momentum of software stocks teaming up with AI computing power is still going strong.

Recently, the Wall Street financial giant Bank of America Corp (Bank of America) released a research report stating that their latest survey on corporate software spending shows that while the global tariff battle initiated by the Trump administration has somewhat disrupted the software demand environment, leading to a slight downward revision of the growth expectations for enterprise software spending in 2025 compared to the previous two surveys (mid-2024 and year-end) to around 9.9%, software spending closely related to AI applications still firmly occupies the top priority level in enterprise software budget expenditures. The survey data shows that global enterprises are increasingly focusing on AI application software, with strong expansion expectations for enterprise AI software budget expenditures from 2025 to 2026. For stocks such as Microsoft Corporation, Alphabet Inc. Class C, Amazon.com, Inc., as well as APPlovin, Palantir, and others focused on AI application software, the momentum of their aggressive advances may be far from over since their stock prices have rebounded significantly from the near-low point in April 2025. In the early April, the heavy pressure of tariffs triggered a global stock sell-off, and software stocks were not spared, following the continued decline of global benchmark stock indices. However, since the Trump administration substantially eased the global tariff policy to a 10% benchmark rate, from mid-April, stocks focused on AI application software surged significantly, with companies closely related to AI showing strong performance as a key driving force. For the "AI computing industry chain" dominated by NVIDIA Corporation, Broadcom Inc., AMD, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, even with the Trump administration launching a new round of aggressive global tariff policies, the prospects for AI computing demand and the long-term investment return growth potential of the so-called "AI infrastructure investment logic" remain intact. A survey by Bank of America shows that cloud infrastructure AI software is at the top of enterprise AI budget expenditures, meaning that the global demand for AI computing power led by cloud giants such as Amazon.com, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Alibaba Group Holding Limited Sponsored ADR, and Alphabet Inc. Class C continues to rise rapidly. Since the emergence of the open-source AI large model DeepSeek-R1 with core attributes of "low cost" and "high performance" has shaken Silicon Valley and Wall Street, a huge wave of deployment or local access to DeepSeek, a heavyweight generative AI application, has swept the world. In the financial market, investors have flocked to software stocks this year, betting that software companies will have performance data several times stronger than the current under the AI frenzy, and that those companies with strong performance growth are likely to replicate the epic 1000% surge in stock prices of "NVIDIA Corporation" since October 2022. In the US stock market, the stock price of the American data software giant Palantir Technologies Inc (PLTR.US) focused on "AI + data analysis" seems to have shown no signs of slowing down, surging more than 65% since the low point in April and up 70% this year, ranking second among S&P 500 index components and far outperforming the S&P 500 index, which has only risen 1% this year. The expanded tech software ETF (ticker code IGV) that tracks the stock price movements of the world's top software companies has risen more than 30% since the end of April, significantly outperforming the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq 100 index. AI GPU leader NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) has surged more than 50% since its low point in April, while AI ASIC leader Broadcom Inc. (AVGO.US) has risen more than 60% during the same period and reached a historic high, making it the "strongest AI computing infrastructure stock" this year. Strong performance data and performance guidance prospects are the core logic behind the recent surge in software stocks. Benefiting from the accelerating expansion trend in the demand for artificial intelligence application software, enterprise AI application software providers such as C3.ai (AI.US), AI ad marketing service provider APPlovin (APP.US), and leaders in "AI + data analysis" Palantir (PLTR.US) have recently announced strong performance data and future performance outlook. This means that not only is the demand for AI computing power infrastructure, represented by NVIDIA Corporation's AI GPU, extremely strong, but also the demand for enterprise AI application software, especially those that can comprehensively improve operational efficiency, is also vigorous and penetrating various industries at an accelerated pace. Statistics show that the annual revenue of Anthropic, also known as the "OpenAI rival," has reached around $3 billion, providing strong early validation for the real-world demand for generative AI application software in the business world. This milestone figure is a significant jump from the nearly $1 billion in annual revenue in December 2024. Sources say that the sharp increase in Anthropic's revenue mainly comes from selling customized "AI large model as a service" to other companies, deploying Anthropic's large models for various complex tasks internally to significantly improve operational efficiency. This data point indicates that the demand for enterprise AI application software is indeed experiencing significant growth. This demand has set Anthropic apart from a host of software as a service (SaaS) providers. The growth rate of its quarterly revenue sets it apart.Anthropic has become the fastest-growing SaaS tech company seen by venture capitalists. "We have looked at IPO data from over 200 public SaaS software companies globally, and the growth rate of Anthropic is unprecedented," said Alex Clayton, a partner at Meritech. He is not an investor in Anthropic and does not know the specific details of its sales internally.ckend AI) 2026AIAIAIAIAIAICK Office AI refers to the integration of AI/ML with RPA, document understanding, predictive algorithms, etc., to enhance the operational efficiency and decision quality of internal support functions such as finance, HR, compensation, procurement payments, supply chain, and business operations compliance. It aims to innovate the entire company's operational efficiency by significantly improving cross-departmental operational efficiency.Back Office refers to AI that is completely different from front-end (marketing, sales) and cloud infrastructure AI, and focuses more on accounting closure, personnel management, inter-departmental operational efficiency, expense control, and business process compliance. ERP/HCM software providers such as Workday, SAP, Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 have deeply embedded generative AI applications or AI agents, greatly enhancing the output efficiency of enterprise back-office AI.