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Oh, to have been an investor in Sandisk in 2025. That company, probably best known to consumers for those little memory cards or USB drives, was one of the best performing tech stocks of 2025—gaining 559% since February, when it was spun out of Western Digital to be a standalone company. By comparison, the best performing of the big tech names, Alphabet, rose just (!) 65%. For those who can remember back 12 months, Sandisk holds the position that AppLovin did in 2024—a lesser known company that investors went crazy for.
Sparking that enthusiasm is Sandisk’s NAND flash memory business, which has suddenly become very important for data center operators, who need it for (what else?) AI-related workloads. Until now, consumer devices such as phones have been the biggest market for NAND memory but CEO David Goeckeler told an investment conference a couple of weeks ago that Sandisk was “seeing this structural change where the data center market in ‘26 will become the biggest market.” Analysts project Sandisk’s revenue in the fiscal year ending in June 2026 will rise 43%, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, compared with 10% growth for its last fiscal year.
Sandisk is a bit like Micron and other high-bandwidth memory chip makers, which are benefiting from rising AI-related demand, as we wrote recently here. Micron stock rose 240% in 2025. Another big winner from the AI data-center explosion is GE Vernova, which makes all kinds of power-generation equipment. Data center developers, such as Crusoe, are suddenly a big part of its business. GE Vernova’s stock jumped 99% in 2025, as analysts project its revenue growth will nearly double to 12.4% in 2026, according to S&P. Another one in that vein is British company Rolls-Royce, which manufactures power-generation equipment, including for data centers. Its stock has also doubled in 2025.
On the software side, it’s no secret that Palantir was the belle of the ball in 2025. It finished 2025 with the stock at $180, up 135%, which follows a 340% gain in 2024. Palantir’s topline expanded 50% in the first nine months of 2025, nearly double 2024’s growth rate for the same period. Palantir has long done a lot of government work, and that part of its business is surging, but so are its business dealings, at least partly due to AI. Palantir’s performance is a contrast to other enterprise software firms, like Salesforce and ServiceNow, whose stocks fell 20% to 30% in 2025 amid concerns about how new AI services will undercut their offerings.
As for the rest of the tech universe, the scorecard is below, with data courtesy of Koyfin. What’s striking is how much fortunes fluctuated through the year. That’s most obviously true for Meta and Google, which switched places during 2025 as investors fell out of love with Meta and in love with Google. That’s a reminder that forecasting the big winners of 2026 would be hazardous.
Tech stock performances in 2025:
Nvidia +39%
Apple +8.6%
Microsoft +14.8%
Alphabet +65.4%
Amazon +5.2%
Meta Platforms +12.8%
Broadcom +49.3%
Tesla + 11.3%
Oracle +17%
Netflix +5.2%
Palantir + 135%
Salesforce -20.7%
ServiceNow -27.8%
Uber +35.5%
Lyft +50%
Shopify +51.4%
Spotify+29.9%
Strategy -47.5%
DoorDash +35%
Robinhood +203.4%
Coinbase -9%
Airbnb +3.3%
Snowflake +42%
In Other News
• Trump Media and Technology Group, the company that operates President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, said it will issue a new cryptocurrency to shareholders, according to a statement on Wednesday.
• OpenAI for a second time asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from xAI accusing the ChatGPT maker of stealing trade secrets through employees it poached from the Elon Musk-led startup.
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