The AI boom is increasingly becoming an infrastructure story rather than just a software story. Large technology companies are still racing to build the computing backbone needed for training, inference, cloud AI services, and enterprise deployment. Reuters reported on April 29 that Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are expected to spend more than $600 billion this year on data centers and other AI-related infrastructure, showing how much of the current cycle is flowing into the physical layer behind AI.
That spending is spreading across several parts of the supply chain. Chip designers, foundries, semiconductor equipment makers, memory suppliers, networking companies, server vendors, and power and cooling providers are all becoming part of the AI buildout. The energy side is also becoming harder to ignore. The International Energy Agency expects global data center electricity consumption to roughly double to around 945 TWh by 2030, with demand growing much faster than total electricity use.
For investors, this makes AI enablers a broader category than the most visible chip names. The companies best positioned are those supplying the compute, connectivity, manufacturing capacity, memory, power equipment, and thermal management needed to keep AI infrastructure expanding. This article looks at the best AI enabler stocks to buy now.
Methodology
For this article, we sourced an initial pool of AI enabler stocks from financial media coverage and then narrowed the list using our own filters. We focused on companies that supply the physical and technical backbone of AI infrastructure, including semiconductors, foundry capacity, networking, memory, power systems, cooling, and data center equipment.
We then prioritized stocks with direct exposure to AI infrastructure spending, strong relevance to the current buildout cycle, and recent company-specific developments that supported their inclusion.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 498.7% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 303 percentage points (see more details here).
10. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is one of the best AI enabler stocks to buy now.
On May 6, NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Corning announced a multiyear commercial and technology partnership to expand U.S.-based manufacturing of optical connectivity products used in next-generation AI infrastructure. Under the agreement, Corning will increase its U.S.-based optical connectivity manufacturing capacity by 10x and expand U.S. fiber production capacity by more than 50%. The plan includes three new advanced manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Texas, and more than 3,000 new jobs.
The deal strengthens NVIDIA’s position beyond GPUs by addressing one of the less visible bottlenecks in AI data centers: moving large volumes of data between processors quickly and efficiently. Reuters reported on May 7 that NVIDIA also made a multibillion-dollar prepayment to Corning, separate from a previously disclosed equity investment of up to $3.2 billion, to support the factory expansion.
NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) develops graphics processors, accelerated computing platforms, AI infrastructure, networking products, software, and related technologies for data centers, gaming, professional visualization, automotive, robotics, and other markets.
9. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM)
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is one of the best AI enabler stocks to buy now.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) sits close to the center of the AI supply chain because the industry’s largest chip designers still need advanced manufacturing capacity before AI demand can become shipped silicon. That showed up clearly in the company’s April 16 first-quarter report, where revenue rose 40.6% year over year in U.S. dollar terms to $35.90 billion (NT$1.13 trillion), while net income increased 58.3% to NT$572.48 billion. Gross margin reached 66.2%, showing that the current cycle is not just adding volume, but supporting strong pricing and utilization.
The mix was the stronger signal. TSMC said 3nm chips accounted for 25% of wafer revenue, while 5nm and 7nm represented another 49%, bringing advanced technologies to 74% of wafer revenue. That matters for an AI-enabler list because cutting-edge AI processors depend on exactly these nodes. Reuters reported the same day that CEO C.C. Wei said AI-related demand remained “extremely robust,” while TSMC lifted its full-year revenue outlook and planned capital spending toward the high end of its $52 billion to $56 billion range.
The result is a simple but powerful investment angle: AI spending may shift between chip designers, cloud platforms, and model developers, but the need for scarce leading-edge wafer capacity keeps flowing through TSMC.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is a dedicated semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced chips for customers across AI, high-performance computing, smartphones, automotive, IoT, and other end markets.
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