Bernstein outlines the 2030 technology landscape: AI reasoning dominates the trillion-dollar blue ocean, betting on Apple, AI servers and storage.

Apple Inc.(AAPL.US), Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C (DELL.US), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE.US), and Seagate (STX.US) and other technology companies became the focus of the US stock market on Tuesday. Prior to this, Bernstein, a well-known investment firm on Wall Street, released the latest research report on Tuesday, Eastern Time, indicating that the trend in the development of artificial intelligence technology, especially the enormous trillion-dollar level "super blue ocean" that is expected to be brought by the AI reasoning system by 2030, should bring long-term benefits to these large technology companies focusing on IT hardware and consumer electronics. Undoubtedly, the recent announcement by the global cloud computing giant Oracle Corporation of contract bookings far exceeding market expectations of $455 billion, and Broadcom Inc., the global AI ASIC chip "super hegemon," issuing strong performance and future prospects last week, have significantly strengthened the "long-term bull market narrative" of the AI GPU, ASIC, and HBM AI computational infrastructure sectors. The demand for AI computational power brought by generative AI applications and reasoning end-points dominated by AI intelligent bodies is immense and expected to drive the AI computational infrastructure market to continue to exhibit exponential growth. The "AI inference system" is also believed by Huang Renxun to be the largest source of future revenue for NVIDIA Corporation. In the eyes of Wall Street investment behemoths Loop Capital and Wedbush, the global AI infrastructure investment wave centered on AI computational power hardware is far from over and is only at the beginning stage. Under the unprecedented "AI computational power demand storm," this round of AI investment wave is expected to reach a scale of up to $2 trillion. NVIDIA Corporation's CEO Huang Renxun even predicted that by 2030, AI infrastructure spending will reach $3 trillion to $4 trillion and its projected scale and scope will bring significant long-term growth opportunities to NVIDIA Corporation. Apple Inc. is the "best entry point for the AI reasoning revolution," and Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C benefits from the increase in AI server shipments. Since September 11, Apple Inc.'s stock performance has been outstanding, with an increase of over 5%, recovering all the losses from early September. According to Apple.com pre-order data tracked by Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., delivery times for all models of iPhone 17 globally are longer than previous generations, highlighting that the new iPhone 17, although criticized by some users for lacking highlights after the launch event, has a very strong actual pre-order demand driven by AI and performance upgrades. Among them, the standard and Pro Max models saw the highest increase, with delivery times extended by 8 days. The mainland China market stands out, with an average increase in delivery time of 17 days, reaching a waiting period of 27 days. Apple Inc.'s CEO Tim Cook recently defended the strong and lasting influence of the iPhone, stating that even with complementary smart electronic devices, the iPhone will remain central to people's lives in the imminent era of artificial intelligence. "Although short-term concerns about the AI bubble still exist in the market, we believe that IT hardware and consumer electronics still have significant upside potential in the long term," wrote a team of analysts from Bernstein. "While there is a great deal of uncertainty in the results, in our 2030 baseline prediction scenario, we conservatively estimate the enterprise-side reasoning costs to be approximately $13 trillion (implying an expected compound annual growth rate of approximately 67% from 2025 to 2030)." "We believe that continuous improvement and iterative updates of the models are the key leading indicators, and remind that mega-scale capital expenditures may be a lagging indicator. In addition to our positive outlook on long-term prospects, we also believe that early signs of the continued prosperity and development of artificial intelligence are still healthy, and overall we have a positive view on this theme," the Bernstein analyst team stated. As for Apple Inc., the institution dubbed this tech giant, which owns consumer electronics product lines such as the iPhone and iPad, as "one of the best entry points for the AI reasoning revolution." The analyst team at Bernstein believes that under the leadership of Tim Cook, this tech giant is one of the best-positioned companies in the sector for AI deployment and is most likely to benefit, but the institution also stated that if Apple Inc. fails to execute properly, the risk is also the greatest. According to statistics, Apple Inc.'s ecosystem has reached 2.35 billion active devices, which means that once reasoning capabilities are integrated at the system level, developers can "plug and play" to reach a massive number of end users. This is the core engineering advantage of the "AI entry point." Apple Inc.'s AI application tool, Apple Intelligence, is designed to run locally first and only calls on larger models via Private Cloud Compute (PCC) when necessary, moving Apple Inc.'s end security model to the cloud, providing verifiable transparency and minimal data residency, which is highly attractive for building sensitive scenarios (personal and enterprise data). Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C technology and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. technology are also expected to be long-term beneficiaries of this AI investment theme, as in Bernstein's view, the significant expansion of AI server shipments should drive "significant" profit and free cash flow growth. However, the institution holds a more cautious view of the AI server leader Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI.US), believing that the company faces "execution challenges and valuation worries." The AI server giant Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C, as well as its main competitor in AI servers, Super Micro Computer, Inc., have been ramping up production of NVIDIA Corporation's latest versions of AI GPUsbased on Blackwell's B200/GB200, as well as more advanced BG300 AI server clusters, in order to win larger-scale business from companies building and using artificial intelligence applications. Many generative AI application software, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Sora video models, require immense data processing capabilities and ever-expanding hardware-side AI computation resources. Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C, through its long-standing close collaboration with NVIDIA Corporation, uses the latest NVIDIA Corporation GPUs and integrates a full set of CUDA acceleration tools to provide indispensable technology segments for enterprises to deploy AI technologyAI training/inference workloads, offering powerful GPU acceleration capabilities. Therefore, Dell Technologies, Inc. Class C's deep cooperation with NVIDIA Corporation ensures the highest priority in hardware and software integration and performance optimization. Two storage giantsSeagate and SanDiskare also viewed favorably by Bernstein In addition, Bernstein's analyst team also points out that the immense demand for AI reasoning end-side computational power undoubtedly drives a long-term surge in data storage needs. The institution believes that Seagate (STX.US) and SanDisk (SNDK.US) are likely to be seen by the market as the providers of storage products that will benefit to the greatest extent from the surge in storage demand. As of the close of the U.S. stock market on Monday, the NAND flash leader SanDisk had seen a stunning 500% increase in its stock price this year, while Western Digital Corporation, a storage giant that provides hard drives (HDD) and NAND flash/SSD products, had risen 128% during the same period. Another global HDD leader, Seagate Technology Holdings PLC, recorded a strong increase of 148%. In this unprecedented wave of AI infrastructure frenzy, with large enterprises and various government departments investing massive amounts in AI, the core storage chip demand closely related to AI training/inference systems remains extremely hot, driving significant revenue growth for memory center businesses, including Micron's data center business showing significant increases in revenue in HBM storage systems, server-level DDR5, and enterprise-level SSD. As breakthrough AI application tools like AI intelligent bodies penetrate various industries worldwide, bringing massive "AI reasoning end-side computational power demand," it means that the future prospects of the AI computational infrastructure in areas such as AI chips, HBM storage systems, enterprise-level SSDs, and high-performance network and power equipment are still vast. Companies' urgent need to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs has greatly accelerated the wide application of two core categories of AI application softwaregenerative AI applications and AI intelligent bodies, with the emergence of AI intelligent bodies signaling the transformation of artificial intelligence from an information assistance tool to a highly intelligent productivity tool. AI intelligent bodies such as OpenAI Deep Research and Manus can automate repetitive tasks, conduct large data analysis and summaries based on immensely powerful AI models, provide real-time monitoring insights and make appropriate decisions for extremely complex situations in a short period of time, thereby improving operational efficiency for businesses. This logic also applies to personal learning and work efficiency. AI intelligent bodies can also efficiently participate in all phases of large-scale projects globally, from blueprint planning to implementation, significantly speeding up project progress. "We expect data center storage to continuously grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 23% until 2030, and both HDD and NAND manufacturers will greatly benefit from the continuous surge in storage demand brought about by AI reasoning," the Bernstein analyst team wrote. "In the [hard disk drive] field, a relatively stable oligopoly structure should bring robust profit and free cash flow growth, with Seagate, which leads in HAMR technology, in the best position. In the NAND field, with the comprehensive penetration of the 'new storage paradigm,' SanDisk should achieve significant profit growth." Finally, the institution also issued exclusive views and comments on the quantum computing revolution, stating that the long-established U.S. tech giant IBM (IBM.US) may ultimately become the industry leader in the field of quantum computing. "Although seen as a declining traditional player, IBM's enormous investment in quantum computing innovation has begun to yield some returns, pushing the institution's performance back on a growth track," the analysts wrote in a report.