Dan Ives says AI-related M&A ‘floodgates’ are about to open. Listed beneath are his takeover picks

Notable know-how enterprise analyst Dan Ives says Big Tech firms and private equity firms are gearing as a lot as make a flurry of acquisitions to stay ahead inside the AI arms race. The analyst shared his picks for shares that are prime acquisition targets as a result of the dealmaking improve will get underway.

“With the regulatory panorama becoming additional lenient to acquisitions with the model new administrations stepping in and never representing steep hurdles, we think about that the tech M&A floodgates are in a position to be opened as additional alternate options come up in order so as to add accretive property with a neater path forward,” Ives talked about late Wednesday phrase to Wedbush Securities consumers.

Over the previous couple of months, plenty of know-how firms have entered into presents to advertise their firms to AI and AI-adjacent firms. Core Scientific agreed in July to advertise its data center enterprise to CoreWeave in a $9 billion all-stock deal. Throughout the same time, Palo Alto Networks launched it may buy CyberArk, an Israeli security company valued at $25 billion, whereas NiCE unveiled plans to purchase consumer-focused generative AI agency Cognigy for nearly $1 billion.

Ives pointed to C3.ai and Sandisk as being among the many many prime M&A targets, whereas Apple and IBM are virtually actually to be extraordinarily acquisitive all through this AI merger wave because of the two Big Tech firms wish to play catch up inside the AI race.

“Whereas a great deal of funding is anticipated to assemble AI use circumstances, we anticipate very important consolidation all through the realm over the following 5-10 years as additional space of curiosity use circumstances for AI is perhaps picked up and added to rising AI product portfolios from large-scale tech players and totally different financial customers to capitalize on the exploding demand for AI all through every enterprise and federal landscapes,” Ives wrote.

Listed beneath are the analyst’s excessive publicly traded takeover candidates.

Sandisk shares have surged higher than 200% as a result of the stock began shopping for and promoting beneath the ticker SNDK in February. Lyft and Tripadvisor are up 68% and 5% as a result of the beginning of this 12 months, respectively.

Nonetheless, Tenable Holdings stock fell 26% this 12 months, whereas C3.ai shares plunged 49% over the an identical interval. Qualys shares slid roughly 6% inside the 12 months to date.