Iron Mountain Incorporated (IRM) Sees Strong Growth in Data Center Storage Amid Rising AI Infrastructure Demand, Analyst Raises Price Target

We recently compiled a list of the 35 AI News You Should Not Miss. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM) stands against the other AI stocks you should not miss.

The AI industry is constantly evolving and investors are keeping a close eye on investments, advancements in AI capabilities, and new partnerships to keep pace with the continued rise of generative AI and integration into key industries. One of the most exciting developments in the field of AI over the past week has been the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded to scientists John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for their pioneering work in the field of machine learning. Hopfield, a researcher at Princeton University, gained recognition for developing an associative memory system, a neural network model capable of storing and reconstructing images or other data patterns. His work revolutionized how data patterns can be represented and recalled, marking significant progress in the field of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, Hinton, a professor at the University of Toronto, pioneered a method for autonomously discovering data properties, enabling machines to perform tasks such as identifying specific elements within images. His contributions have been pivotal in advancing AI capacity for image recognition and pattern identification.

Another notable report worthy of mention is a recent Reuters study into the funding that AI startups have attracted so far this year. The study highlights the $6.6 billion funding round for AI startup OpenAI recently that pushed the valuation of the company to more than $157 billion. It also spotlights other AI startups that have received more than $500 million in funding this year. These include xAI, CoreWeave, Scale AI, Figure AI, Groq, Mistral AI, and Cohere. They have raised $6 billion, $1.1 billion, $1 billion, $657 million, $640 million, $600 million, and $500 million in funding so far this year, respectively. The startups are all valued at more than $2.5 billion, with xAI, founded by Tesla chief Elon Musk, worth over $24 billion. A recent report by Goldman Sachs reveals that businesses worldwide are projected to spend nearly $1 trillion in the coming years on building AI infrastructure. The report underscores the massive scale of investment needed to meet the growing demand for AI technologies across various industries. In 2024 alone, venture capital firms have already completed around 200 deals with AI companies, pouring in nearly $22 billion in funding. The average size of these funding rounds exceeds $100 million, reflecting the increasing valuation of AI startups, which now often surpass $1 billion.

Read more about these developments by accessing 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock and Beyond the Tech Giants: 35 Non-Tech AI Opportunities.

Our Methodology

For this article, we selected AI stocks by combing through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A storage facility with boxes and shelves to store records, representing the company's secure records storage.

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 24

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM) is a real estate investment trust that focuses on storage and information management services. In recent quarters, the company's data center storage revenue has emerged as its fastest-growing segment, achieving a 30% year-over-year growth. It currently operates 26 data center hosting facilities, up from 24 the previous year, indicating continued expansion. Additionally, the company leases 260 megawatts of electricity to its customers, catering to the growing power demands of AI-driven infrastructure.  Stifel analyst Shlomo Rosenbaum recently raised the price target on the stock to $140 from $117 and kept a Buy rating on the shares. After spending time with the company's CFO in investor meetings, the advisory has increased confidence that the upper-single-digit to low-double-digit revenue growth rate the company has been experiencing for the last several years should be sustainable for an extended period of time. In a research note, the advisory said it is assuming that the appeal of the company will extend beyond the REIT investor group that have pushed the stock up recently.

Overall IRM ranks 34th on our list of the AI stocks you should not miss. While we acknowledge the potential of IRM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than IRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

 

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.