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When it comes to investing in artificial intelligence (AI), buying shares of graphics processing unit (GPU) manufacturers like Nvidia (NVDA 2.33%) and Intel (INTC 3.00%) can be a wise decision. Nearly every AI application requires these specialized chips to function, and buying stock in a GPU maker gives your portfolio direct exposure to the entire AI industry.
Right now, Nvidia shares give you more-direct exposure to AI demand, but Intel’s discounted valuation and plans for growth make it an exciting story to watch. So which GPU manufacturer should you invest in today? You might be surprised by the answer.
Most of Nvidia’s gargantuan $3 trillion market cap can be attributed to its dominance in AI chips. Estimates say the company commands somewhere between 70% to 95% market share for GPUs designed for the AI market.
This dominance was created over more than a decade of forward thinking. In 2006, for instance, Nvidia released its CUDA developer suite, which allowed developers to customize its chips to create unparalleled performance benefits. This customization also locked customers into Nvidia’s hardware and has a flywheel effect for its software.
The company was also one of the first to ramp up investment in machine-learning GPUs, giving it a crucial head start over the competition.
Intel, meanwhile, has been left in the dust due to a variety of management errors. Today, its revenue is shrinking, with its valuation more than 90% below Nvidia’s on a price-to-sales basis.
Even management isn’t confident that it can catch up to Nvidia anytime soon. Patrick Gelsinger, Intel’s former CEO, recently said about Nvidia: “In that race, they are so far ahead. Given the other challenges that we have, we’re just not going to be competing anytime soon.”
So when it comes to betting on AI, Nvidia is the clear winner right now. But might Intel shares be a worthwhile investment given their rock bottom valuation?
NVDA PS Ratio data by YCharts; PS = price to sales, TTM = trailing 12 months.
Right now, Nvidia is selling tens of billions of dollars worth of AI accelerators each quarter. Advanced Micro Devices, a rival, is selling more than $1 billion worth each quarter. What about Intel?
In 2024, it failed to reach its target of just $500 million in AI GPU sales for the entire year. Intel’s competitiveness in AI right now simply cannot be undersold. But is the valuation low enough to warrant a small stake? I’d argue yes for one reason: gross margins.
NVDA Gross Profit Margin data by YCharts.
Due to heavy demand, many of Nvidia’s chips are seeing waiting times of 12 months or more. Its products are priced at a steep premium to the competition, and rightfully so. Its gross margins are nearly 75%, while Intel’s gross margins are closer to 30%. This is where Intel can compete.
If demand for AI chips continues to outpace Nvidia’s ability to meet that demand, it’s possible that Intel can convince developers and data center operators to switch to its inferior product due to cheaper pricing and its availability. This adoption could help build out Intel’s developer ecosystem, a major weakness in its current product.
If you want to invest in AI, Nvidia should be a heavy position in your portfolio. But adding a small position in Intel could help diversify that bet for a very small price, allowing you to benefit wherever shares trend toward over time.
Ryan Vanzo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short May 2025 $30 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
CEO Jesse Zhang (left) and CTO Ashwin Sreenivas (right) competed in science and math Olympiad competitions growing up. Now Decagon is in talks to raise $100 million in funding at a $1.5 billion valuation.
Decagon
AI startup Decagon, which is building customer service-focused agents, is in talks to raise $100 million in fresh funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to five sources familiar with the deal.
Andreessen Horowitz and Accel are leading the round, with participation from existing investors, according to four of the people. The company has more than $10 million in signed contracts (often denoted using the term annual recurring revenue), according to two sources. Another source familiar with the talks said the round hasn’t been closed yet and the figures could change.
Decagon, Andreessen Horowitz and Accel did not immediately respond to comment requests.
Decagon is building customer support chatbots and agents— software that can autonomously perform basic tasks— for things like answering questions on how a product works, processing refunds and canceling subscriptions. Companies like Notion, Bilt, Duolingo, Substack and Rippling use Decagon customer support chatbots.
The latest investment comes less than a year after Decagon raised a $65 million Series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures at a $650 million valuation, Forbes reported in October. The new investment would bring Decagon’s total funding to $200 million. The company, which was featured on the Forbes AI 50 list, was cofounded by 27-year-old CEO Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas in 2023 after the duo surveyed dozens of companies to find the problem that could best be solved with AI.
Customer support, a tedious but pivotal part of any business, has long been targeted for automation as a means to save millions in labor costs by eliminating largely outsourced customer support teams. Credit card provider Bilt downsized its customer support team from hundreds to 65 with Decagon, Forbes reported last year. And fitness giant ClassPass, which uses Decagon’s AI agents to carry out 2.5 million conversations with its customers, has reduced its customer support costs by 95%, according to The Information. “We think AI agents can be 10x employees,” Zhang told Forbes in March.
Under the hood, Decagon’s agents are built on the most advanced models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Cohere, and trained on internal data like how-to blogs, manuals and past customer service conversations. Staff rate and review responses generated by the AI to improve it. In February, Decagon partnered with audio generation startup ElevenLabs to create voice agents to have more natural, human-like conversations with customers.
Customer service software is a competitive market and Decagon is up against companies like $4.5 billion-valued Sierra, helmed by former Salesforce co-CEO and OpenAI board Chairman Bret Taylor, and Salesforce, which has its own AI agents for customer support. The products themselves are also increasingly identical to each other and businesses regularly do what are called bake offs to pit one AI tool against another to see how well they perform on the job.
“Decagon claims they win almost every time they go up against Sierra head to head,” said one investor involved in the talks. “Ultimately, they are both going to have exactly the same product and it will really be a race to see who can solve a higher percentage of the support calls with the best accuracy.”
MORE FROM FORBES
Google is notifying parents using its Family Link parental controls via email that their kids will soon be able to access Gemini AI Apps on their monitored Android devices, The New York Times reports.
The company says kids will be able to use Gemini to do things like help them with homework or read them stories. Like its Workplace for Education accounts, Google says children’s data will not be used to train AI. Still, in the email, Google warns parents that “Gemini can make mistakes,” and kids “may encounter content you don’t want them to see.”
In the case of Gemini, Google’s emailed advice says parents should talk to their kids and explain that the AI isn’t human and not to share sensitive information with the chatbot.
Kids under 13 will be able to enable and access Gemini all on their own under Google Family Link, which is designed for parents to keep tabs on their kids’ device usage, set limits, and protect them from harmful content. Google spokesperson Karl Ryan confirmed in an email to The Verge that parents can turn off access via Family Link, and that “they will get an additional notification when the young person accesses Gemini for the first time.”
President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal attire days after jokingly saying he would ‘like to be Pope’. While some social media users found the post humorous, others criticized it as insensitive, accusing Trump of mocking Pope Francis’ death.
Francis died last month. The 88-year-old suffered a stroke and heart failure, Vatican doctor Andrea Arcangeli said in a death certificate released last week, Reuters reported. President Trump was among several world leaders at the pope’s funeral.
After Trump posted the AI-generated image of himself dressed in papal attire, several social media users accused him of mocking Francis’ death.
“This is disrespectful to the church and God himself… he’s literally the antichrist,” one person commented.
Another wrote, “This is disgusting and entirely offensive.”
A third person tweeted, “This is extremely disrespectful and narcissistic. republicans really voted for that.”
Another person commented, “How disrespectful to Catholics. That is what Trump and his maggots are all about, disrespect and meanness and stupidity. How dare you mock the process we Catholics go through to pick a new pope.”
Trump was recently asked by a reporter who he would like to succeed Pope Francis. The 78-year-old immediately quipped: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
He further added: “I have no preference. I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good, so we’ll see what happens.”
South Carolina Sen Lindsey Graham vouched for Trump as pope.
“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!” the Republican posted on X, platform formerly known as Twitter.
The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!
President Donald Trump posted a seemingly artificially enhanced photo of himself depicted as the pope on Truth Social Friday night and it has sparked dueling backlash and praise on social media.
Newsweek reached out to the Vatican via email Friday night for comment.
Pope Francis’ death on April 21 marked a time of mourning for millions of Catholics around the world. Francis died from complications related to a stroke, followed by a coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse.
His funeral took place on Saturday in St. Peter’s Square in front of heads of state, including the president and first lady Melania Trump, clergy and the general public. Francis’ body was laid to rest in St. Mary Major, one of the four papal basilicas in Rome.
Francis’ leadership in the Catholic Church sparked distinguishable change, mainly with his views on the LGBTQ+ community.
The president posted the picture at 10:29 p.m. Friday, without a caption or comment. The post immediately garnered positive and negative reaction online.
Comedian Terrance K. Williams posted on X, formerly Twitter, Friday night, “Pope Trump… Lol our President just posted this. He’s trolling because he knows the media is going to flip out. Love it Actually I love the sound of King Trump, the first of his name.”
Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health and former Democratic congressional candidate, also posted to X on Friday night, saying, “The guy who broke all 10 commandments is posting pictures of himself cosplaying as the next Pope.”
Trump was asked this week whom he’d like to see succeed Francis as the new pope. “I’d like to be pope,” he quipped.
Continuing, he added while speaking to reporters on Wednesday: “That would be my number one choice. No, I don’t know, I have no preference. … I must say, we have a cardinal [Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York since 2009] that happens to be out of a place called New York, who’s very good.
“So, we’ll see what happens.”
Speculation has mounted over who could be the next pope, as betting odds and social media chatter have swirled. According to bookmakers and Vatican analysts, a handful of potential candidates have strong odds.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state and also his acting interim national security adviser, also quipped about being the next pope in an interview on Thursday with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity.
Rubio said in part, “You don’t have to be a priest. Any—people don’t know that. Any unmarried Catholic male can be pope, but I got married and I’m happily married, so I guess I’ll miss out on that one.”
Vice President JD Vance first joked about Rubio being pope, posting to X on Thursday, “I think he could take on a bit more. If only there was a job opening for a devout Catholic…”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina posted to X on Tuesday: “I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility! The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!”
The Republicans Against Trump X account on Friday: “Donald Trump just posted a photo of himself as the Pope. It’s full-on lunacy at this point.”
The MAGA Voice X account on Friday: “HOLY SH*T 🚨 Donald Trump stuns the world by posting a picture of himself as the next Pope 🔥 Donald Trump would be one of the BEST Popes to ever live 🙏”
Art Candee, Chicago-based artist and frequent Trump critic, posted to X on Friday: “Donald Trump is now posting AI images cosplaying as the Pope. Bro isn’t right in the head.”
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian and political commentator, posted to X on Friday: “Authoritarian leader cult alert”
The conclave process to select the next pope begins on Wednesday.
Election success would be a personal victory for Musk. His popularity has diminished since he became the chain-saw-wielding public face of President Donald Trump’s federal job and spending cuts and profits at his Tesla car company have plummeted.
SpaceX has drawn widespread support from local officials for its jobs and investment in the area. But the creation of an official company town has also prompted concerns about expanding the tech tycoon’s personal control over the area, with potential authority to close a popular beach and state park for launches.
Companion efforts to the city vote include bills in the state Legislature that would shift closure authority from the county to Starbase city.
All these measures come as SpaceX has asked federal authorities for permission to increase the number of launches from South Texas from five to 25 a year.
Musk first floated the idea of Starbase in 2021. The proposed city at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexico border is only about 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers), crisscrossed by a few roads and dappled with airstream trailers and modest midcentury homes.
SpaceX officials have said little about exactly why they to want a company town and did not respond to emailed requests for comment this week.
“We need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote to local officials in 2024 with the request to get the city issue on the ballot.
The letter said the company already manages roads and utilities, as well as “the provisions of schooling and medical care” for those living on the property.
SpaceX officials have told lawmakers granting the city beach closure authority would streamline operations for a company that has contracts with the Department of Defense and NASA.
SpaceX rocket launches and engine tests, and even just moving certain equipment around the launch base, requires closing a local highway and access to Boca Chica State Park and Boca Chica Beach.
Critics say closure authority should stay with the county government, which represents a broader population that uses the beach and park. Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino, Jr. has said the county has worked well with SpaceX and there is no need to change.
Another proposed bill would make failure to comply with an order to evacuate the beach a Class B misdemeanor with up to 180 days in jail.
The South Texas Environmental Justice Network, which has organized protests against the city vote and the beach access issue, planned to hold another protest Saturday night as the polls close.
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Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas.
