The AI revolution is leading to a massive boom in data centers. Major cloud service providers like Google, <a href="https://fortune.com/2026/07/13/meta-hyperion-louisiana-50-billion-tax-breaks-locals/">Meta</a>, Microsoft, and Amazon are engaged in a frenzied bid to keep up with the demand for AI services, and are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to compete. The money taps remain turned on full-blast even in the face of a choppy stock market and persistent fears over whether AI stocks are in a bubble.
“Hyperscalers are going to spend maybe between $750 and $800 billion [a year]. Some forecasts even have it up to a trillion, and that would put it at 2.5 to 3% of U.S. GDP, which is just extraordinary for a capital market,” John Mowrey, chief investment officer at NFJ Investment Group, said.
A considerable portion of this spending will go to data centers, which offer a pick-and-shovels options for investors looking to ride the AI wave. Fortune has identified four distinct entry points into the data center economy: semiconductor chips, real estate, energy, and cooling. Experts weighed in on which stocks stand out in each category.
Chips: The brains behind the buildout
The AI data center buildout requires several components to work, but none of it matters without a brain, and that’s exactly what semiconductors provide.
