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Invest in These 5 Big Data Behemoths to Gain From Wall Street Rally
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Key Takeaways
Cisco sees AI infrastructure orders hitting $9B in fiscal 2026 amid strong data center demand.
Salesforce is expanding generative AI with Einstein GPT and increasing Europe AI investments.
Palantir, Cloudflare and Datadog are gaining from AI-driven analytics and cloud adoption.
Big Data refers to a vast and diverse collection of structured, unstructured and semi-structured data that inundates businesses on a day-to-day basis. The big data space focuses on companies that process, store and analyze data, and provide data mining, transformation, visualization and predictive analytics tools.
The chart below shows the price performance of our five picks in the past month.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Cisco Systems Inc.
Cisco Systems has been benefiting from strong product orders from hyperscalers, enterprises, service providers, the public sector and cloud customers. In the last reported quarter, CSCO generated record-high revenues primarily due to its networking portfolio, powered by Silicon One, AI-native security solutions and operating systems.
CSCO expects total artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure orders to reach $9 billion in fiscal 2026, an increase of 4.5X from fiscal 2025. Overall product orders grew by a sizable 35% year over year in the third quarter. Of this, data center switching orders grew 40% from the year-ago period supported by massive AI-powered data center buildout.
Cisco has decided to retrench 4,000 manpower as part of a sweeping restructuring effort. Management said that this restructuring has been guided to give more emphasis to areas like AI networking infrastructure, network security, silicon and optics.
Cisco Systems has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 9.8% and 9.7%, respectively, for the current year (ending July 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.2% over the last seven days.
Salesforce Inc.
Salesforce is continuously expanding its generative AI offerings. Generative AI is a type of AI technology that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data. It is driven by a large language model, which means it uses a lot of data to understand and generate conversations.
CRM forayed into the generative AI space with the launch of Einstein GPT in March 2023. Since then, the company has been investing in its generative AI capabilities through its venture capital fund.
These investments serve as a strategic engine for the company to maintain its competitive position in the enterprise software space while navigating the AI platform shift. The fund, managed by Salesforce Ventures, benefits the company by fostering an ecosystem of trusted AI partners, accelerating product innovation, and driving financial returns.
CRM has significantly ramped up its investments in Europe, focusing heavily on AI infrastructure, R&D, and local partnerships, with the United Kingdom serving as its primary AI hub for the region.
Salesforce has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 10.9% and 5%, respectively, for the current year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 1.1% over the last 90 days.
Palantir Technologies Inc.
Palantir Technologies’ AI strategy is comprehensive, combining its proprietary Foundry and Gotham platforms with a solid plan to promote AI adoption across both government and commercial sectors. PLTR’s AI Platform (AIP) is the backbone of these capabilities, enabling organizations to process large datasets and derive real-time insights. This is especially valuable in sectors requiring extensive data integration, such as defense, healthcare, finance and intelligence, where operational efficiency and decision-making speed are critical.
In the government sector, Palantir is aligning its AI strategy with U.S. defense priorities. Its work in high-profile initiatives, such as the Department of Defense’s Open DAGIR project, highlights its ability to modernize military operations through AI-driven solutions where data interoperability and real-time decision-making capabilities are imperative. These capabilities solidify PLTR’s position as a key player in the defense sector.
In the commercial space, Palantir’s AIP boot camps — providing hands-on experience to over 1,000 companies — have proven instrumental in customer acquisition. Boot camps showcase the platform’s capabilities and demonstrate its adaptability across logistics, manufacturing, and supply-chain management. PLTR’s core customer base comprises businesses seeking tailored AI/ML services, particularly large government and corporate clients willing to invest heavily in its systems.
Palantir has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 71.8% and 98.7%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 11.2% over the last 30 days.
Cloudflare Inc.
Cloudflare is benefiting from the demand for integrated security, networking and developer services as enterprises modernize and AI reshapes internet traffic. NET’s AI-focused networking and cybersecurity offerings are gaining traction as more workloads shift toward edge architectures.
NET noted that it added 1 million developers in the first quarter of 2026, and highlighted customer interest in controlling and monetizing AI bot and agent traffic. This expands the opportunity for the Workers platform and related products as customers build real-time applications closer to end users. NET also noted that AI and agents are becoming a larger share of how software is built and consumed, supporting longer-term platform demand.
Cloudflare has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 29.5% and 22.6%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.9% over the last seven days.
Datadog Inc.
Datadog is benefiting from enterprise adoption of its unified observability platform, driven by cloud migration and digital transformation across global organizations. AI-powered anomaly detection and root cause analysis strengthen competitive positioning against legacy monitoring vendors. DDOG’s Platform consolidation supports multi-product deployments, creating network effects and customer stickiness.
The platform's comprehensive observability and security suite addresses critical enterprise needs for cloud infrastructure monitoring, application performance management, security analytics, LLM observability, data observability and cloud cost management in increasingly hybrid, multi-cloud and AI-driven environments. Enterprise customers typically deploy multiple Datadog products, creating significant expansion opportunities through cross-selling and upselling.
DDOG’s leadership in AI-powered observability and security establishes significant competitive advantages as enterprises increasingly prioritize intelligent monitoring solutions. These AI capabilities become increasingly valuable as cloud environments grow more complex and distributed across multiple infrastructure layers.
Datadog has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 25.1% and 6.3%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.9% over the last seven days.
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Invest in These 5 Big Data Behemoths to Gain From Wall Street Rally
Key Takeaways
Big Data refers to a vast and diverse collection of structured, unstructured and semi-structured data that inundates businesses on a day-to-day basis. The big data space focuses on companies that process, store and analyze data, and provide data mining, transformation, visualization and predictive analytics tools.
Here, we have selected five such companies — Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO - Free Report) , Salesforce Inc. (CRM - Free Report) , Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR - Free Report) , Cloudflare Inc. (NET - Free Report) and Datadog Inc. (DDOG - Free Report) . Each of our picks currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The chart below shows the price performance of our five picks in the past month.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Cisco Systems Inc.
Cisco Systems has been benefiting from strong product orders from hyperscalers, enterprises, service providers, the public sector and cloud customers. In the last reported quarter, CSCO generated record-high revenues primarily due to its networking portfolio, powered by Silicon One, AI-native security solutions and operating systems.
CSCO expects total artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure orders to reach $9 billion in fiscal 2026, an increase of 4.5X from fiscal 2025. Overall product orders grew by a sizable 35% year over year in the third quarter. Of this, data center switching orders grew 40% from the year-ago period supported by massive AI-powered data center buildout.
Cisco has decided to retrench 4,000 manpower as part of a sweeping restructuring effort. Management said that this restructuring has been guided to give more emphasis to areas like AI networking infrastructure, network security, silicon and optics.
Cisco Systems has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 9.8% and 9.7%, respectively, for the current year (ending July 2026). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.2% over the last seven days.
Salesforce Inc.
Salesforce is continuously expanding its generative AI offerings. Generative AI is a type of AI technology that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data. It is driven by a large language model, which means it uses a lot of data to understand and generate conversations.
CRM forayed into the generative AI space with the launch of Einstein GPT in March 2023. Since then, the company has been investing in its generative AI capabilities through its venture capital fund.
These investments serve as a strategic engine for the company to maintain its competitive position in the enterprise software space while navigating the AI platform shift. The fund, managed by Salesforce Ventures, benefits the company by fostering an ecosystem of trusted AI partners, accelerating product innovation, and driving financial returns.
CRM has significantly ramped up its investments in Europe, focusing heavily on AI infrastructure, R&D, and local partnerships, with the United Kingdom serving as its primary AI hub for the region.
Salesforce has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 10.9% and 5%, respectively, for the current year (ending January 2027). The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 1.1% over the last 90 days.
Palantir Technologies Inc.
Palantir Technologies’ AI strategy is comprehensive, combining its proprietary Foundry and Gotham platforms with a solid plan to promote AI adoption across both government and commercial sectors. PLTR’s AI Platform (AIP) is the backbone of these capabilities, enabling organizations to process large datasets and derive real-time insights. This is especially valuable in sectors requiring extensive data integration, such as defense, healthcare, finance and intelligence, where operational efficiency and decision-making speed are critical.
In the government sector, Palantir is aligning its AI strategy with U.S. defense priorities. Its work in high-profile initiatives, such as the Department of Defense’s Open DAGIR project, highlights its ability to modernize military operations through AI-driven solutions where data interoperability and real-time decision-making capabilities are imperative. These capabilities solidify PLTR’s position as a key player in the defense sector.
In the commercial space, Palantir’s AIP boot camps — providing hands-on experience to over 1,000 companies — have proven instrumental in customer acquisition. Boot camps showcase the platform’s capabilities and demonstrate its adaptability across logistics, manufacturing, and supply-chain management. PLTR’s core customer base comprises businesses seeking tailored AI/ML services, particularly large government and corporate clients willing to invest heavily in its systems.
Palantir has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 71.8% and 98.7%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 11.2% over the last 30 days.
Cloudflare Inc.
Cloudflare is benefiting from the demand for integrated security, networking and developer services as enterprises modernize and AI reshapes internet traffic. NET’s AI-focused networking and cybersecurity offerings are gaining traction as more workloads shift toward edge architectures.
NET noted that it added 1 million developers in the first quarter of 2026, and highlighted customer interest in controlling and monetizing AI bot and agent traffic. This expands the opportunity for the Workers platform and related products as customers build real-time applications closer to end users. NET also noted that AI and agents are becoming a larger share of how software is built and consumed, supporting longer-term platform demand.
Cloudflare has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 29.5% and 22.6%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.9% over the last seven days.
Datadog Inc.
Datadog is benefiting from enterprise adoption of its unified observability platform, driven by cloud migration and digital transformation across global organizations. AI-powered anomaly detection and root cause analysis strengthen competitive positioning against legacy monitoring vendors. DDOG’s Platform consolidation supports multi-product deployments, creating network effects and customer stickiness.
The platform's comprehensive observability and security suite addresses critical enterprise needs for cloud infrastructure monitoring, application performance management, security analytics, LLM observability, data observability and cloud cost management in increasingly hybrid, multi-cloud and AI-driven environments. Enterprise customers typically deploy multiple Datadog products, creating significant expansion opportunities through cross-selling and upselling.
DDOG’s leadership in AI-powered observability and security establishes significant competitive advantages as enterprises increasingly prioritize intelligent monitoring solutions. These AI capabilities become increasingly valuable as cloud environments grow more complex and distributed across multiple infrastructure layers.
Datadog has an expected revenue and earnings growth rate of 25.1% and 6.3%, respectively, for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year’s earnings has improved 0.9% over the last seven days.