It's easy to identify the hottest tech stocks of today, but it's much more difficult to look several years through the fog and determine who'll still be on top.

But RBC Capital's analysts have just released a fascinating report, "Imagine: 2025," highlighting tech stocks they believe will outperform all the way through 2025.

This requires a different set of criteria than would be used for short-term tech analysis. Writes RBC: "Equity valuations are based on the present value of future cash flows. Most analysis is focused on the next quarter or 1-2 years, but rarely is time and effort taken to think about the next 7 years when assessing the valuation of a company."

This involves 1) identifying themes and norms that will become standard by 2025; and 2) identifying forward-thinking companies most boldly and effectively positioned for this new future.

Here are 10 of the top tech stocks to buy for future growth, according to RBC Capital. We'll also use TipRanks market data to understand whether now is a compelling time to invest in these technology companies.

Amazon.com

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Market value: $872.6 billion

TipRanks consensus price target: $2,097.97 (18% upside potential)

TipRanks consensus rating: Strong Buy (See Details)

Amazon.com (, $1,777.44), along with Google parent Alphabet (), has invested the most heavily in artificial intelligence, writes RBC Capital. And unlike smaller rivals, AMZN also boasts "the Big Data access and Compute Power infrastructure to benefit the most from AI and ML (machine learning) deployments."