Wires and cables in a server room.
Thomas Northcut | Digitalvision | Getty Photos
Nvidia has been the most important infrastructure winner within the synthetic intelligence growth, hovering in worth by nearly thirteenfold for the reason that finish of 2022 to a market cap of $4.6 trillion.
Whereas Nvidia’s rally continued in 2025, traders betting on different AI knowledge middle performs made much more cash over the previous 12 months.
With 4 of the most important expertise corporations projecting collective expenditures of $380 billion on knowledge middle and infrastructure build-outs this yr, adopted by an anticipated improve within the coming years, Wall Road has poured cash into an assortment of distributors which are poised to reap the rewards.
Makers of reminiscence, storage, fiber-optic cables, central processors and different kinds of enterprise {hardware} have rocketed in valued this yr, pushed by pleasure across the AI craze.
Buyers can be scrutinizing these 5 corporations carefully in 2026 now that lofty expectations have been constructed into their inventory costs.
Lumentum
Lumentum, based mostly in San Jose, California, makes switches, transceivers and different optical laser-based elements which are wanted for fiber-optic cables. Prospects have sometimes been telecommunications carriers and gadget makers like Apple, which beforehand used Lumentum elements in its FaceID sensor.
However AI servers additionally want quite a lot of optical connections. Each graphics processing unit in a rack must be related to each different GPU. Future AI techniques will scale out, which requires optical connections from rack to rack. Finally, complete knowledge facilities will should be related to one another with fiber-optic connections.
Lumentum’s inventory value has jumped 372% this yr as of Wednesday’s shut, lifting the corporate’s market cap previous $28 billion. Gross sales surged 58% in the newest quarter from a yr earlier to $533 million.
“Our progress is powered by AI demand spanning our laser chips and optical transceivers inside knowledge facilities, in addition to the interconnected long-haul networks that hyperlink them,” Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston stated on an earnings name in November. He stated 60% of the corporate’s gross sales now come from cloud and AI infrastructure.
Income is anticipated to rise 58% for the fiscal yr ending in June, however analysts see a slowdown from there to progress of 32% and 15% within the subsequent two years, in response to LSEG.
Western Digital
Western Digital is one among three main exhausting drive producers, together with Seagate and Toshiba. Shares of the 55-year-old firm are up nearly 300% this yr.
Along with computing energy, AI corporations want growing quantities of house to retailer functions and different knowledge. In brief, knowledge facilities want exhausting drives.
Whereas Western Digital makes solid-state exhausting drives, which use chips to retailer knowledge, the corporate is finest recognized for its exhausting disk drives, which use spinning discs to retailer terabytes or extra of information.
“Information is the gas that powers AI, and it’s HDDs that present essentially the most dependable, scalable and cost-effective knowledge storage answer,” CEO Irving Tan stated in October on an earnings name. He cited an instance of a hospital that is utilizing an AI that analyzes 7 billion photographs.
In the newest quarter, income rose 27% to $2.82 billion. The corporate says that promoting extra storage for knowledge facilities will enhance profitability as a result of AI corporations want bigger, costlier exhausting drives.
Income is anticipated to extend about 23% in fiscal 2026, with progress slowing to 13% in 2027.
In February, Western Digital spun out its flash enterprise as Sandisk, which now has a market cap of about $35 billion, greater than half the worth of Western Digital.
Micron
Micron is one among three main reminiscence producers, alongside Samsung and SK Hynix, however the one one based mostly within the U.S.
Synthetic intelligence servers want quite a lot of reminiscence to retailer and course of huge AI fashions. Chips from Nvidia or Superior Micro Units include scores of gigabytes of essentially the most superior reminiscence, referred to as high-bandwidth reminiscence. The chipmakers are taking all of the reminiscence manufacturing capability, resulting in a worldwide scarcity and driving costs increased.
Micron blew away Wall Road estimates for gross sales and earnings in its quarterly report final week, and the inventory is now up 241% for the yr.
Sumit Sadana, Micron’s enterprise chief, stated the corporate was “greater than offered out” of its reminiscence chips. In December, it even shuttered its consumer-focused line of reminiscence and solid-state drives to avoid wasting provide for AI.
Analysts from Morgan Stanley stated in a December observe that Micron’s outcomes confirmed one of the best income and revenue upside within the “historical past of the U.S. semis trade” — other than Nvidia.
Income is anticipated to nearly double within the yr ending in August, earlier than dramatically slowing to 24% in fiscal 2027 and fewer than 1% in 2028, in response to LSEG.
Seagate
An exterior view of a Seagate workplace on October 26, 2022 in Fremont, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Photos
Seagate, based 9 years after Western Digital, can be benefiting from booming demand for storage. The inventory is up 231% this yr.
Gross sales rose 21% to $2.63 billion within the firm’s fiscal third quarter, which ended Oct. 3. The corporate stated on the time that 80% of its gross sales go to the information middle market.
“There isn’t any query that AI is reshaping exhausting drive demand by elevating the financial worth of information and knowledge storage,” CEO Dave Mosley stated on a name with analysts.
Seagate is unlikely to have additional exhausting drives in stock, Financial institution of America analysts wrote in November, as any extra shipments will get claimed shortly. The analysts additionally famous that prospects are signing build-to-order contracts with agency quantity and value commitments.
“The additional models are sometimes bought by hyperscale or different mass capability prospects,” wrote the analysts, who suggest shopping for the inventory.
Seagate’s trajectory seems much like Western Digital. Analysts anticipate 21% income progress this fiscal yr, adopted by will increase of about 15% and 6% within the subsequent two years, in response to LSEG.
Celestica
Celestica, based in 1994 as an IBM subsidiary, makes switches that join networks collectively and handle the information and site visitors flowing by them.
The inventory is up greater than 230% this yr.
The corporate sells a lot of its switches to the most important AI consumers. Gross sales rose 28% within the third quarter to $3.19 billion. Analysts anticipate income progress to climb from 26% this yr to 33% in 2026 and 34% in 2027, in response to LSEG.
Celestica CEO Robert Mionis stated on an earnings name in October {that a} hyperscaler just lately approached the corporate to construct elements to attach liquid-cooled rack-scale computer systems for AI, and stated mass manufacturing is scheduled to start subsequent yr.
One boon for Celestica is surging demand for customized chips referred to as ASICs, that are much less versatile than GPUs however may be cheaper to function for particular AI functions.
“Our largest and fastest-growing market presence is inside AI knowledge facilities, supporting high-performance networking and customized ASIC AI/ML compute platforms,” Mionis stated.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a observe Friday that Celestica provides elements for Google’s ASIC.
“The corporate ought to profit in 2026 from being the main supplier of Google TPU rack degree options,” the analysts wrote.
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