Supermicro could be set to take advantage of artificial intelligence hype, according to Barclays. The firm initiated coverage of the information technology company on Tuesday with an overweight rating and a $327 per share price target. Barclays’ forecast implies nearly 34% upside from Monday’s $244.30 close. Meanwhile, Supermicro shares have already surged 198% from the start of the year. SMCI YTD mountain Super Micro Computer stock. Analyst George Wang noted that Supermicro is in an advantageous position when it comes to the emerging artificial intelligence opportunity. “On the back of the compelling AI investment trend, we believe SMCI’s robust AI server offerings will enable it to seize the increasing opportunity in this area, leading to strong revenue growth over the next few years,” Wang said. The analyst noted that AI inferencing, which is the process of a trained neural network model making predictions, already made up 52% of the company’s second-quarter revenue. He posits that number could grow to 70% in 2024 and more than 80% in 2025. “We model SMCI’s revenue growth at 17% in FY25 after 46% growth in FY24, consistent with IDC’s [International Data Corporation] forecast of a 17% CAGR [compounded annual growth rate] in 2021-2026E for AI server revenue growth,” Wang said. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.