Investor darling Nvidia is dominating the headlines again after its earnings beat expectations last week on the rise of artificial intelligence. The chipmaker's shares topped $1,000 for the first time last Wednesday and are up nearly 170% over the past year. Morgan Stanley noted that the reaction to Nvidia's first-quarter results is “very telling of how much buying power there is still in the market.” “We are far from topping out on AI. This should be enough to sustain investor confidence in AI supply chain stocks in Asia,” analysts at the investment bank wrote in a May 22 research note. Companies in Asia are poised for a boost in the second half of the year as demand for Nvidia's H100 GPUs (graphics processing units) and Hopper chip series increases. This presents a “better profitability picture for the Asia AI supply chain,” the analysts noted, adding that “now is the time to take advantage of any potential pullback in market balance.” While several companies stand out as good plays, the Wall Street bank said it is “most bullish” on stocks related to graphic processing units, high-bandwidth memory, custom chip design, manufacturing, testing and rail kits. These are Morgan Stanley's seven overweight stocks for driving AI themes: Overweight stocks on Morgan Stanley's list of AI stock opportunities are South Korean tech company SK Hynix and Taiwanese chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Both companies have made headlines in the past year and analysts are broadly bullish on their prospects. Of the 39 analysts covering SK Hynix, 35 have a buy or overweight rating on the stock, according to FactSet data, while 36 of the 38 analysts covering TSMC have a hold on the stock. Has a Buy or Overweight rating. SK Hynix stocks are held in the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF (8.4% weight) and the Franklin FTSE South Korea ETF (8.3% weight). Shares in TSMC include the iShares MSCI Taiwan ETF (25.1% weight) and the Franklin FTSE Taiwan ETF (22.2% weight).In addition to the headline makers, Morgan Stanley also sees potential in Japanese manufacturer Advantest Corp. The company's shares are held in Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta Japan Equity ETF (1.0% weight) and JPMorgan BetaBuilders Japan ETF (0.8%), apart from these companies, the Wall Street bank named Taiwanese semiconductor companies Alchip Technologies, Andes Technology and Me AP. is given Also, Japanese filtration services provider Micronics lists each of its “AI beneficiaries” as having over 50% upside potential. — CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
