5 Brilliant Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks That Are Just Getting Started
Keithen Drury, The Motley Fool
Wed, July 15, 2026 at 1:33 AM GMT+5:30
4 min read
- NVDA+4.06%
The artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure build-out is still just getting started, and many of the stocks directly involved in it are just getting started, too. Most analysts and companies are expecting that the hot phase of this build-out may start winding down in 2030. Still, it could easily extend for years beyond that if the AI firms start seeing tangible returns on investment and AI technology provides enough value to warrant serious subscription fees
That could open the door for even more gains and make many stocks on the hardware side great investments — including these five
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a “Double Down” signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same “Total Conviction” signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
How much upside is left in the build-out?
For 2026, the big four AI hyperscalers project that they will spend more than $650 billion on data center capital expenditures. That doesn’t include the spending of other companies involved in AI, like OpenAI or Anthropic. It also fails to factor in what companies in China and other international markets are spending. Even if the total figure for AI capex globally is closer to $1 trillion right now, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) expects far more
Nvidia is a great voice to listen to in this area because it has the largest market share of AI computing units by far. It has repeatedly told investors that it expects global data center capital expenditures to reach $3 trillion to $4 trillion annually by 2030
While that may sound far-fetched, the reality is that Nvidia’s position in the chip space gives it unusually clear insight into these trends. In the short term, Nvidia also expects AI hyperscalers to spend more than $1 trillion next year, a huge rise over this year’s figure
That bodes well for most companies involved in the space
The five will have a fantastic run over the next few years
Nvidia easily tops the list of AI stocks worth buying and holding, as it has a great future and has already established itself as the AI leader. The market isn’t pricing a ton of hoped-for growth into its stock yet, either. It trades at just 23.5 times forward earnings
Next up, I think Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) is a great pick, as it’s tackling a different segment of the computing market. Instead of making GPUs like Nvidia, which can provide massive parallel processing power for a variety of computing applications, Broadcom partners with AI hyperscalers to develop custom AI chips called application-specific integrated circuits. As the name implies, they’re built to handle only specific types of workloads, but in their narrow specialized areas, they outperform GPUs on a cost basis.Â
