Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRVL) are two of the clearest ways to bet that hyperscalers will keep replacing some merchant AI chips with custom silicon. The stocks now ask very different prices for that opportunity. Broadcom trades at about 20.5 times forward earnings, while Marvell trades near 47.8 times.
That gap matters because both companies already have real AI demand rather than hypothetical exposure. Broadcom's custom-chip boom increasingly depends on a small group of hyperscaler programs, while Marvell's Google opportunity could eventually reach enormous scale but remains weighted toward later fiscal years. Investors are therefore choosing between established economics and more distant upside.
Broadcom is already converting AI demand into cash
Broadcom's fiscal third-quarter revenue rose 86% to $29.6 billion, while free cash flow reached $13.7 billion, equal to 46% of revenue. Management expects fourth-quarter revenue of about $34.8 billion, up 93% year over year. That combination of growth and cash conversion makes its current multiple unusually hard for Marvell to match.
Marvell is growing quickly too. Fiscal second-quarter revenue rose...