Wedbush adjusts AI 30 list: SK Hynix and Datadog added, Alibaba Group Holding Limited Sponsored ADR and Shopify removed.

Against the backdrop of the ongoing deepening of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and the continuous increase in capital spending by technology giants, the well-known Wall Street investment bank Wedbush recently made a new round of adjustments to its highly anticipated AI 30 winners list. In this adjustment, the enterprise software company Datadog (DDOG.US) and South Korean storage chip giant SK Hynix were both added to the list, while Alibaba Group Holding Limited Sponsored ADR (BABA.US) and Shopify (SHOP.US) were removed from the list. SK Hynix: "Unprecedented storage super cycle" is fully underway The Wedbush analyst team pointed out in their report to clients that one of the strongest themes presented in recent field researches and first quarter earnings reports is an "unprecedented storage super cycle" that is fully underway. The report stated that the demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), DRAM, and NAND due to AI infrastructure has reached unprecedented levels, as major hyperscale cloud providers are expanding their computational capacities and the demand for storage for AI workloads far exceeds that of traditional cloud workloads. Against this backdrop, storage manufacturers are experiencing the strongest pricing power in the past decade, and prices of DRAM and NAND are expected to significantly increase in the second half of 2026. Wedbush believes that SK Hynix is one of the core beneficiaries of this storage super cycle, and is one of the most important AI investment targets in the current market. The report states that "Wall Street still severely underestimates the duration and magnitude of this cycle." As the world's largest HBM supplier, SK Hynix's performance is rapidly increasing due to the drive in AI storage demand. The company's financial data for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 shows that quarterly revenue has exceeded 50 trillion Korean won for the first time, reaching 52.58 trillion Korean won, with an operating profit of 37.61 trillion Korean won, a 405% year-on-year increase. Operating profit margin soared to 72%, net profit margin to 77%, both setting record highs since the company's establishment. The company's HBM supply is completely sold out, and all DRAM, HBM, and NAND capacity for 2026 has been locked in by customers. The company's CFO confirmed as early as October 2025 that the HBM supply for 2026 was fully sold out, and management warned that supply shortages could continue until 2027. In the 2026 HBM market, SK Hynix is expected to have a market share of around 52%, with HBM revenue expected to reach $5.95 billion, solidifying its position as the global leader. Wedbush states that SK Hynix, along with Micron (MU.US), are the "most direct beneficiaries" of the capital spending wave of hyperscale cloud providers, and are the core winners of the AI revolution. This assessment is based on the macro background that Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US), and Meta (META.US) plan to collectively invest $725 billion in the AI field in 2026. Micron previously estimated that the potential market size of HBM would increase from $35 billion in 2025 to $100 billion in 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of about 40%. Datadog: Indirect beneficiary of the AI revolution Unlike SK Hynix representing the AI infrastructure layer, Datadog was selected as an indirect beneficiary of the AI revolution. Wedbush points out that Datadog stands out in monitoring, security, and optimization needs for enterprise AI workloads, and as AI and cloud workloads continue to expand, the company is increasingly capable of seizing the opportunity of this industrial transformation over the years. It is understood that Datadog's movements in the AI observability field are frequent: in March 2026, it officially launched MCP Server, which integrates real-time observability data into AI encoding agents, helping teams directly debug production environments in tools such as Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, etc.; in the same month, it also released the AI Security Analyst feature of Cloud SIEM, which can compress traditional security investigations that typically take hours to less than 30 seconds, shortening the average resolution time by over 90%; in April, it announced the launch of the GPU Monitoring product, providing enterprises with unified visibility across AI stacks to help optimize GPU spending and accelerate AI project delivery. Financially, Datadog's latest quarterly earnings report shows revenue reaching $1.01 billion, a 32.1% year-on-year increase, exceeding the market's expected $960 million; earnings per share were $0.60, also higher than the expected $0.51. Several Wall Street institutions have recently raised their target prices, with Oppenheimer raising it from $200 to $220, RBC raising it from $161 to $219 and giving it an "outperform" rating, and Evercore giving it a target price of $225.