In this article, we look at the Best Data Center Stocks to Buy for the Long Term.

In the era of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, data centers have shifted from being simple digital warehouses to becoming vital infrastructures of the modern economy. These facilities host the file servers and networking equipment that store and process the data required to train, deploy, and scale artificial intelligence globally.

According to Jones Lang La Salle (JLL)’s 2026 Global Data Center Outlook, the global data center sector is projected to increase by 97 gigawatts (GW) between 2025 and 2030, effectively doubling in size over a five-year period. It added that global data center capacity could reach 200 GW by 2030.

“This rapid growth will be driven largely by hyperscale cloud expansion and AI demand,” JLL said.

While AI has been rapidly gaining daily active users, JLL noted that it accounted for only about a quarter of all data center workloads in 2025, with training driving most of the demand.

“However, a significant shift is anticipated in 2027, when inference workloads could overtake training as the dominant AI requirement,” JLL said.

With the rise of AI seen to continue driving data center demand in the coming years, let’s take a look at the 10 Best Data Center Stocks to Buy for the Long Term.

Our Methodology

To compile our list of the best data center stocks, we screened U.S.-listed companies that are either pure-play data center operators or have significant exposure to the sector, leveraging ETFs, industry research, and proprietary databases. From this pool, we selected the 10 stocks most widely owned by hedge funds, based on Q4 2025 filings from Insider Monkey’s database. These names were then ranked by the number of hedge funds holding positions in them.

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).

Note: All pricing data is as of market close on April 16, 2026.

10. CoreWeaveInc. (NASDAQ:CRWV)

Market Cap: $62.85 billion

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 58

CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) is one of the best data center stocks to buy for the long term. The stock’s price more than doubled from a year ago, up 205.86%, while it registered a 50.73% increase year-to-date. On April 16, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch raised his price target for the CoreWeave stock to $156 from $149 and reiterated a Buy rating, highlighting the company’s recent large-scale deals such as its $6 billion AI cloud agreement with Jane Street, its $21 billion deal with Meta Platforms, and a multi-billion-dollar deal with Anthropic.

Under the expanded partnership with Jane Street, CoreWeave will provide the former with access to next-generation compute across multiple facilities, including NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin technology and the software and services required to deploy and scale its AI solutions.

Last week, CoreWeave also announced a multi-year agreement with Anthropic to support the development and deployment of Anthropic’s Claude family of AI models. Under the agreement, Anthropic will use CoreWeave’s cloud platform to run workloads at production scale, while benefiting from its industry-leading performance and reliability.

“We’re excited to work with Anthropic at the center of where models are put to work and performance in production shows up. It’s exactly the kind of real-world deployment of AI that CoreWeave was built for,” said Michael Intrator, Co-founder, CEO, Chairman of CoreWeave.

The company said the collaboration will initially focus on a phased infrastructure roll-out with the potential to expand over time.

Aside from the partnership with Anthropic, CoreWeave also announced earlier this week an expanded, long-term agreement with Meta Platforms, Inc. to provide AI cloud capacity through December 2032 for approximately $21 billion.

According to CoreWeave, the dedicated capacity will be deployed across multiple locations and will include some of the initial deployments of the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform. This distributed approach is designed to optimize performance, resilience, and scalability for Meta’s AI operations.

It added that the new agreement is a clear signal of the industry’s accelerating demand for high-performance infrastructure capable of supporting increasingly complex, large-scale AI workloads.

CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) is an AI cloud computing company that specializes in providing cloud-based graphics processing unit (GPU) infrastructure to AI developers and enterprises.

9. Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Market Cap:$325.31 billion 

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 77

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)is one of the 10 Best Data Center Stocks to Buy for the Long Term. The stock is up 51.58% from its price a year ago and 11.13% year-to-date. On April 16, JPMorgan raised its price target on CSCO to $96 from $95 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. JPMorgan expects AI infrastructure investments across server, switches, copper interconnects, and optical to drive upside to AI-levered suppliers in the first quarter.

Cisco earlier reported 10 percent revenue growth for the quarter ending January 24, 2026. Cisco said second-quarter net income on a GAAP basis registered at $3.2 billion or $0.80 per share, while non-GAAP net income was $4.1 billion or $1.04 per share.

Chuck Robbins, chair and CEO of Cisco, was encouraged by the results. In a statement, he said:

“Cisco’s strong second quarter and first half of fiscal 2026 demonstrate both the power of our portfolio and the fundamental role we continue to play in connecting and protecting customers in a rapidly evolving landscape.”

“With over 40 years of customer trust, global scale, and a relentless focus on innovation, we believe Cisco is uniquely positioned to deliver the trusted infrastructure needed to securely and confidently power the AI-era,” he added.

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) designs, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment, and other high-technology services and products. The company’s offerings include routers, switches, cybersecurity solutions, and collaboration tools, serving a wide range of industries and customers globally.