Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett is one of history’s most successful investors. Under his leadership, Berkshire Hathaway has risen to become the world’s ninth-largest company, with a market capitalization of roughly $959 billion today.
In addition to its dozens of fully and partially owned subsidiary businesses, Buffett’s conglomerate also owns a portfolio of publicly traded stocks worth $287 billion as of this writing. And while the Oracle of Omaha is best known as a value investor, that portfolio actually has significant exposure to the rise of artificial intelligence. With that in mind, read on for a look at two of the most high-profile AI stocks in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio.
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Keith Noonan: Accounting for 23.2% of the value of Berkshire Hathaway’s public equity portfolio, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is the conglomerate’s biggest stock holding, and by default also its biggest AI stock holding. The investment has been an incredible performer for Berkshire Hathaway: Apple shares have delivered a total return of more than 800% since Buffett’s company first bought the stock in the first quarter of 2016.
The tech giant recently rolled out its Apple Intelligence software with its iPhone 16 smartphones, and it’s positioning AI as a key selling point for its next-generation mobile devices. In addition to being a huge sales and profit driver in its own right, Apple’s dominant position in the mobile hardware market gives the company some big advantages in the artificial intelligence race.
Thanks to its large and highly engaged mobile hardware user base, the company has access to troves of valuable data and a loyal customer base to sell add-on services to. Notably, Apple’s software and services business is now on track to generate over $100 billion in annual revenue.
However, while Apple has served up great stock performance and has some big AI opportunities on the horizon, Berkshire Hathaway has made some eye-catching moves with the stock lately. Berkshire Hathaway’s recently published third-quarter report revealed that the conglomerate had once again sold a significant amount of Apple stock during the period. It still owns roughly 296 million shares of Apple stock, but that’s down by more than two-thirds from its peak holding of roughly 907.6 million shares.