Looking beyond the Mag 7

With the Mag 7 dominating headlines again this year, 2025 quietly became a defining moment for the rest of Big Tech. From chipmakers reinventing themselves to software players riding (or straining under) AI demand, here’s how a couple of the biggest non-Mag 7 names in tech stacked up.

• Broadcom cemented itself as Nvidia’s most credible challenger in 2025, doubling its stock price on the back of booming custom-chip demand, heavyweight partnerships with Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI, and a blowout Q4 in which net income nearly doubled and chip sales soared 74%. With both its semiconductor and infrastructure software units beating expectations, Broadcom proved it’s now a central player in the AI hardware race. The stock is up 50.9% in 2025.
• Intel’s year was chaotic, but ultimately salvaged by outside intervention: after missing the AI boom and suffering steep losses, the company cycled through a new CEO, agreed to offload a majority stake in Altera at a discount, endured political fire from President Trump, and accepted a government-backed SoftBank infusion—only to stage a surprise rebound when Nvidia became a strategic investor in September, lifting the stock 22% that day, and leaving Intel up 86.03% YTD.
• AMD re-entered the AI spotlight with a year of strong earnings, the launch of its Instinct MI350 GPUs, and a blockbuster deal to supply six gigawatts of GPUs to OpenAI—a partnership that could add $4.5 billion in quarterly revenue by late 2026, and even gives OpenAI warrants to acquire up to a 10% stake in AMD. With analysts overwhelmingly rating the stock a “Buy,” AMD became one of 2025’s clearest AI beneficiaries outside the Mag 7. Shares are up 78.28% in 2025.
• Marvell Technology delivered solid Q3 results and sees data-center revenue climbing more than 25% next fiscal year. But the stock still sank 21.45% this year as a broader tech selloff, fears of losing key Microsoft and AWS orders, and intensifying chip-sector competition overshadowed its long-term AI positioning.
• Palantir doubled again in 2025 thanks to explosive adoption of its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which helped drive Q3 revenue up 63% year over year across both government and commercial customers. Analysts expect another 41% jump in 2026, but with shares now up more than 2,700% since early 2023 while revenue climbed just 104%, valuation concerns loom large over the company’s otherwise stellar momentum. Investors seem unbothered: shares are up 139.11% YTD.

Technology is evolving faster than ever, and with it comes changes in market leadership. Will the Mag 7 remain the dominant force in the AI trade next year, or will usurpers begin to steal the spotlight? Only a new year will tell.—SY