The AI & Quantum Boom Is Just Starting (Best Stocks to Buy Now)

Now, I want my portfolio to grow as much as possible. And I have 10 years to let it grow and never touch it. I want to invest in quantum computing and AI because those will be huge and only grow in the next decade. What's the best way to invest in each of these sectors? Best companies to buy now with differing levels of risk, but also differing levels of possible returns. What a question. I get a version of this question just about each and every week. I'm going to break this down for you, but I'm also going to show you the red flags to watch out for, especially in this thinking. My name is Nolan Goa. My students call me Professor G, and I made this channel to make investing simplified. Remember that all investing carries risk, so do your own research. This is not financial advice, and I'm not a financial adviser. So, let's do a little reality check before I actually get into answering the question. Quantum and AI will only grow over the next decade. The technology probably will, but that doesn't necessarily mean the stocks will, and that definitely doesn't mean that today's leaders are going to be the ones that grow. In 1999, everyone knew the internet was the future. They were right. They still lost money buying Pets.com and Cisco at the peak. Cisco still hasn't recovered its 2000 high. Never touch it for 10 years. Now, that's a great mindset, but specifically for a diversified portfolio. It's a much riskier mindset for concentrated bets in two specific sectors, especially one like quantum where useful commercial applications are still 5 to 10 years out for most uses and most of the publicly traded and private quantum computing startups will go bankrupt before viable quantum computing technology becomes available in roughly 2030. Buy and forget works when the underlying business are durable. With Pure Play Quantum, you might come back 10 years from now and that company that you invested in could be out of business. Now, also in this question, the person asked specifically in two different sectors, and so concentration in those two sectors might be a risk as well. Most of the long-term millionaire stories that you hear of people who got that way because of investing did so in boring indexes, something like an S&P 500, total US stock market, something very, very boring for the broad majority of their portfolio and not necessarily from picking just the right sector about a decade out. A common framework is most of your money in something boring and diversified like the S&P 500 and a smaller thematic sleeve, often a few percent of the total portfolio sized so that a total loss would not derail the plan. For sector bets like quantum and AI, that's worth thinking about before you go allin on these two. And those aren't the only two sectors that you should be thinking about right now. Some other really really good ones to think about and put in your portfolio possibly would be things like technology, robotics, space, and even crypto. And now, if you're interested in learning more about this sector specifically, 21 Shares has a bunch of education and information to learn more. Thank you to 21 Shares for sponsoring today's video. 21 Shares is one of the world's leading crypto ETP providers providing access to digital assets through exchange traded products. Their mission is to bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto. Designed with a focus on security and collateralization traded on global exchanges. With a deep focus on transparency, compliance, and investor education, 21 Shares is helping bring digital assets into the mainstream in a responsible, sustainable way. Want to learn more about developments in crypto and digital assets? Subscribe to the 21 Shares newsletter. You'll get market insights, product updates, and trend breakdowns straight to your inbox. Follow at21shares and2shares_us on social for accessible content, timely market commentary, and compliance aligned crypto education. 21 Shares products may not be available to all investors and are subject to regulations in your jurisdiction. This is not financial advice. All investing carries risk. Consult a licensed financial adviser before making investment decisions. So now with that said, here's the landscape to help be able to actually answer the question from before. What is the best way to invest in these sectors? Best companies to buy now with differing levels of risk but also differing levels of possible returns. So let's talk about AI specifically AI by risk level. Let's start with the least risky. These would be diversified already profitable AI mega caps. So things like Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, these aren't AI plays in the pure sense. They're huge profitable businesses with major AI investments. If AI booms, they benefit. If it disappoints, they survive on their existing cash flows. Morning Star currently flags Meta as undervalued with the company investing in consumerf facing AI through its llama chatbot and Oracle as another infrastructure side play. Then there's like the medium risk like the picks and shovels. This could be something like Nvidia as the dominant name. It has secured a dominant market position in training huge AI models, but its high valuation gives it little margin for error and its market share may be eroded by growing competition from AMD, Intel and hyperscalers producing custom chips. AMD is the secondary bet with the thesis that it has established itself as a leader in the datacentered CPU market and as Agentic AI shifts the GPU to CPU ratio from 8:1 towards 1 one CPU demand will explode. Micron supplies the high bandwidth memory that goes into AI chips more cyclical historically but riding the same wave. Then there's going to be those that are higher risk AI native infrastructure and software companies like Nebus which would be AI first cloud infrastructure or AI application names like Palunteer Service Now Snowflake higher growth potential but more sensitive to sentiment swings and several have very rich valuations. Now, the simplest option obviously is going to be to look at an AI themed ETF, which gives you a basket and removes single stock risk. Lower potential upside than picking the one winner, but you also can't pick the one that goes to zero. So, now let's talk about quantum. So, some of the higher risk is going to be that pure quantum play. Ion Q, Regetti, D-Wave, and Quantum Computing Inc., these are the lottery ticket stocks. Huge potential upside if the technology arrives, and they're the winner. near total loss potential otherwise. The valuations right now are extreme and they're very much unproven yet. They're also heavily dilutive. Pure plays regularly issue equity to fund R&D. So shareholders absorb dilution as the science advances. Among the pure plays, ion Q tends to be flagged as the most commercially mature, the largest pure play by revenue, partnerships across all major clouds, and a clearer road map. Regetti and D-Wave have much smaller revenue basis and QBT is the smallest and most speculative. Then we have lower risk. These are big tech names and they're associated with quantum but they're not necessarily 100% that. Alphabet Microsoft IBM Nvidia and Amazon all have serious quantum efforts. Alphabet's willow chip is making breakthrough progress. IBM's on track for a fault tolerant quantum computers by 2029. And Nvidia is positioning itself as the essential bridge between quantum and classical computing through its Q to Q platform. Honeywell has majority ownership of Quantinuum, one of the leading trapped ion firms. The pitch, you get quantum upside if it works and you own profitable real businesses if it takes longer than expected. Multiple sources noted that this is what large institutional investors are choosing. Billionaires have settled on Google parent Alphabet as their preferred quantum computing stock to own. Now, the simplest option in quantum would also be an ETF. A quantum ETF holds a basket of quantum exposed names, giving you exposure without betting on a single company surviving. I did a video on the best quantum ETFs out there, and it's definitely worth taking a listen. So then how would somebody build out a portfolio that's getting the upside of these types of thematic things like AI or crypto or quantum or whatever but also not betting the farm on it so that if they do drop or if any one of them does drop it doesn't catastrophically take out all of your net worth. If I wanted to have a couple of these sleeves and I was okay with the amount of risk that this was going to put into my portfolio this is how I'd build it out. I'd have a core of at least 50%. This would be broad index funds like the S&P 500 or total US stock market. Boring, but historically the highest probability path to long-term growth. Then I'd have just a pure technology sleeve, maybe at 15%. This would just be a pure broad technology ETF that encompasses all different technology. Then I might have an AI sleeve at 15%. I might throw in a mix of big tech leaders, but then also an AI ETF or two and maybe one higher risk pick if you want it in the quantum sleeve, maybe around 10%. I'd have more of the big tech like Alphabet, IBM, Microsoft, maybe, but more often than not, probably a quantum ETF. And same thing for a crypto sleeve. At 10%, I would have a Bitcoin ETF or Ethereum ETF or even both. This way, you're participating in the sleeves of AI and crypto and quantum and technology and these types of things that could shoot off to the moon. But like I said before, if any one of them fails, you're not left holding the bag. I'd highly recommend that you take a little bit more time and research, specifically quantum ETFs. So, I put together this video here that talks about a couple of quantum ETFs. It also has some AI ETFs and even a memory ETF, which is another big thing that I think is happening in the future. Or watch this one to keep you going strong and investing.