Cathie Wood’s 11 Biggest AI and Data Center Stock Picks

In this article, we will discuss Cathie Wood’s 11 Biggest AI and Data Center Stock Picks.

Cathie Wood, once a Wall Street darling, hit peak visibility during the pandemic tech boom when her flagship innovation fund’s disruptive bets paid off. But the surge in interest rates and the sharp reset in tech valuations hit the strategy hard. According to Bloomberg, the fund recorded about $120 million in net outflows through Feb. 17, 2026, and it’s up just 1% year to date. Despite massive declines since the fund’s peak, Wood says her strategy should be judged over a longer horizon.

Over the past three years, her innovation-focused ETF has delivered roughly 18% annualized returns, according to Bloomberg data. In 2025, the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) returned 35%, compared with 17% for the S&P 500 Index.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Blockchain & Fintech Innovation ETF delivered a return of about 29% last year, outperforming much of the fintech space. Most of the gains were driven by AI-linked and tech-oriented names such as Palantir Technologies and Roku, which are not traditional fintech holdings. These positions helped offset the weakness and volatility seen in core fintech and crypto stocks throughout the year.

‘It Truly Is a Revolution’

In an interview in November, Wood said that people are underestimating the scale and power of the AI revolution because they have never seen anything like it in their lifetimes. She rejected the idea that we are in an AI bubble and said the dot-com era cannot be compared with today. Back then, investors were buying into a “dream,” backing companies at high valuations while the underlying technology was not ready, she said. Today,  the technological infrastructure is far more advanced, and companies are already generating real revenue. Breakthroughs such as cloud computing and modern AI tools have made it possible for firms to build actual products with real users and real economic activity.

“I don’t think people appreciate what kind of technology revolution we’re in, it truly is a revolution and we have not experienced one of them in our lifetimes,” Wood said.  “I don’t think people understand how big this technology revolution is and how long it’s going to last.”

For this article, we scanned Cathie Wood’s ARK portfolio updated as of the end of the fourth quarter and picked the fund’s biggest holdings related to AI and data centers. 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).

Cathie Wood of ARK Investment Management

11. Coreweave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV)

Cathie Wood’s Stake: $137,795,948

Coreweave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) is among the top beneficiaries of the roughly $700 billion AI capex wave because it is selling something every major tech company needs: high-performance GPU cloud infrastructure used to train and run artificial intelligence models. Instead of companies spending billions to build their own data centers, they rent CoreWeave’s clusters of advanced GPUs to power everything from large language models to complex simulations.

Coreweave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) has strong demand visibility because hyperscalers like Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta Platforms are consistently flagging capacity constraints, not weak demand. That supply shortage is exactly what drives Coreweave Inc’s (NASDAQ:CRWV) model, supported by a backlog rising from $66.8 billion toward potentially about $90 billion.

Giants like Meta Platforms, OpenAI, Anthropic and IBM are depending on CoreWeave for tech and AI infrastructure. Meta recently signed an expanded agreement with CoreWeave worth about $21 billion, securing long-term access to GPU-powered cloud capacity. These deals show that leading AI companies are committing billions upfront to lock in the computing power needed to train and run large-scale models.

Coreweave shares recently rose after Citi increased its price target on the stock to $155 from $126, citing demand and rising spending. Citi estimates about 35% to 40% growth in backlog for the company on a quarterly basis.

Montaka Global Investments stated the following regarding CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) in its Q4 2025 investor letter:

“The second argument for bubble trouble is that hyperscalers are overvalued because a new generation of cloud provider – such as CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) – is entering the market, leading to a deteriorating competitive landscape. But these new cloud providers are not comparable to the hyperscalers in several important ways. First, businesses like CoreWeave only offer specialised AI model-training infrastructure – a low margin, less differentiated and commoditised offering.”

10. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Cathie Wood’s Stake: $171,300,778 

What was once seen as a stock that could be disrupted by AI (threats to search) is now soaring because Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) successfully turned the tables and embraced AI instead of resisting it. In Q1, sales rose 22%, while Cloud revenue jumped 63% year over year, driven by surging AI and core cloud demand, while operating profit in the segment tripled to $6.6 billion.

But what about AI threats to Google search? Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) still has over 90% of the total market share in search. Gemini has reached 750 million monthly active users (MAU), compared with 450 million seen at the start of 2025. Analysts believe the company can monetize its Gemini user base with ads. Alphabet shows ads in about 25% of these AI results to capture users with strong intent for shopping.

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is also making strides in the AI hardware space with its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). A long-term deal with Broadcom secures this chip supply through 2031, helping Google lower costs while building a massive AI infrastructure. Anthropic plans to use 3.5 gigawatts of Google’s TPU power starting in 2027.

L1 Capital International Fund stated the following regarding Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:

Portfolio adjustments during the March 2026 quarter were relatively modest, but deliberate. We trimmed investments in AerCap, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), HCA Healthcare and Weir Group at prices around the top end of our assessed fair value range, with all of these businesses benefitting from positive sentiment intra-quarter. Alphabet’s share price has more than doubled over the past 12 months. This reflects strong performance in core Search, continued momentum in Google Cloud Platform, and better-than-expected progress in AI (Gemini). Today Alphabet has a market capitalisation approaching US$4 trillion. Share prices and fair value are not always aligned, even for the world’s largest companies.

9. Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Cathie Wood’s Stake: $197,069,302 

Mark Zuckerberg is showing no signs of slowing down AI spending, even when Meta reacts negatively to CapEX hikes, because he can see the long-term returns.

Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is using AI to boost ad revenue through smarter targeting, automation, and creative generation tools. Meta’s AI-powered ad tools are already being used by around 8 million advertisers, up from 4 million previously, showing how quickly adoption is scaling.

Beyond ads, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is pursuing a full-stack AI strategy. Its custom Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chips cut reliance on expensive Nvidia GPUs. Earlier MTIA chips operated at roughly 25W, compared to about 250–500W for Nvidia A100s and around 350W for H100s. The newer MTIA generations are likely to handle recommendation systems and generative AI workloads. This could unify AI training, inference, and advertising workloads under its own hardware stack.

Zuckerberg is cutting costs to put everything into AI with layoffs and an efficiency push.

Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:

“In addition, we also re-initiated a position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), a name we previously owned in 2022. While we remain mindful of elevated data center capex and the uncertainty around its ultimate return without a comparable cloud business, we are encouraged by Meta’s strong execution in monetizing AI across its platforms. Advertising revenues are growing at approximately 25% despite already exceeding a $200bn annual run rate, supported by an unparalleled global reach of 3.2bn monthly and 2.2bn daily active users. Although margins are likely to face near term pressure from continued investment, we expect re-expansion as management balances growth and spending. With the stock trading at ~21x FY26 earnings after a prolonged period of sideways performance, we see an attractive valuation for a business capable of delivering mid-teens EPS growth, with additional upside potential if investment intensity moderates.”

8. Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg Co Ltd (NYSE:TSM)

Cathie Wood’s Stake: $227,485,976 

Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg Co Ltd (NYSE:TSM) is perhaps the most critical cogwheel in the AI revolution. It manufactures the world’s most advanced semiconductors for companies that design chips but don’t own fabrication plants. TSM has about 62% of the total foundry market and over 90% of the market for advanced nodes (7nm and below). Taiwan Semiconductor’s (NYSE:TSM) customers don’t switch because finding other chip foundries is extremely hard, if not impossible.

The scale of demand in this cycle is clearly visible in the numbers. In Q1 2026, Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) revenue rose 35% year over year, showing a sharp acceleration in business momentum. For Q2, the company is guiding for about 32% year-over-year revenue growth, and for the full year 2026, it expects more than 30% revenue growth.

Wedgewood Partners stated the following regarding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:

“Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) was a top contributor to portfolio performance in the first quarter. Revenues grew +25%, and the Company guided to accelerating revenue growth to +30% in 2026 as demand for compute accelerators for AI applications continues to ramp unabated. In addition, the Company recently reported that March revenue was up +45% year over year, +31% month over month, and +35% year to date. The semiconductor customer base has evolved to the point that the Company increasingly works directly with non-traditional end customers, particularly cloud service providers, to develop custom silicon. This helps the Company better match supply with demand, so despite strong revenue growth, the Company has kept capital expenditures relatively in line with revenue growth. In addition, the Company is raising prices as utilization rates at leading-edge nodes continue to climb. We trimmed positions because our holdings exceeded 10% of portfolios. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company remains a top holding.”

7. Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Cathie Wood’s Stake: $233,978,549 

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is up about 5% so far this year, but bulls believe the stock has more upside potential. Its gains have been capped amid the AI bubble and CapEx fears. No amount of positive news seems to move the stock significantly. But the latest earnings season has shown that AI demand and CapEx is far from over. What are Nvidia’s growth catalysts? Beyond its GPUs, which are in high demand and dominate the AI industry, Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) has growth catalysts like CPUs (Grace) and deeper infrastructure with NVLink and InfiniBand networking. Nvidia networking revenue has more than doubled year over year, driven by strong demand for systems like Spectrum-X that connect large AI data centers.

Full rack-scale systems is another strong growth catalyst. They combine compute, networking, and memory into complete data center units. This shifts Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) closer to a full infrastructure provider rather than just a chip designer.

Polen Focus Growth Strategy stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:

“At the same time, the angst around an AI bubble and the future return from the vast infrastructure investment spend has seen enthusiasm wane for the immediate beneficiaries. Take NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) for example, in their most recent earnings report during the quarter they increased revenues in excess of 70% year-over-year and delivered meaningful beats on the top and bottom lines, while significantly increasing forward guidance well above consensus estimates. Despite these stellar numbers, the market reaction was one of disinterest as their shares declined post-print and have languished since despite continued evidence showing there seems to be a long runway of outsized future growth ahead for the company.”

6. Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Cathie Wood’s Stake: $279,823,368 

Think of Amazon and AWS, Cloud and AI come to mind before e-commerce. That’s a win for the company that has positioned itself at the forefront of the AI revolution.

Amazon Web Services was already a leader in the cloud market when the AI revolution started, and that position has significantly boosted its growth. Demand has increased as AI companies and enterprises now need far more computing power to train and run large models, driving higher usage of AWS’s GPU-based cloud services and AI chips like Trainium and Inferentia. The result? AWS revenue rose 28% in Q1, amounting to about a $150 billion annualized run rate, marking its fastest growth in 15 quarters.

Amazon Web Services is no longer just a cloud and software-focused AI company. Its AI-focused Trainium chip line is seeing strong demand and rapid scaling. Trainium has already built a backlog of over $225 billion, and that figure had crossed $20 billion earlier while still growing at a triple-digit year-over-year rate.

Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) recently said its Trainium2 chip delivers about 30% better price-performance than comparable GPUs and is largely sold out, showing strong adoption from AI customers. Its next-generation Trainium3 improves performance by another 30% to 40% over Trainium2 and is already nearly fully subscribed.

Vulcan Value Partners stated the following regarding Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:

“There were seven material detractors to performance: Ares Management Corporation, Ryan Specialty Holdings, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Salesforce, Inc., UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and SAP SE. Amazon reported strong results for its fiscal year and fourth quarter. During the fourth quarter, AWS’s revenue increased 24% and highly profitable advertising revenue grew 22%. AWS is benefitting from AI driven demand for its cloud services and its growth is accelerating. In addition, Amazon is aggressively building out its promising Leo satellite service that will compete with Starlink. As a result, Amazon’s capital spending is forecast to increase over 50% in 2026 to approximately $200 billion. We expect a solid return on this capital spending. Bears believe that Amazon is investing too much money in capital spending. Our view is that it is a darn good problem to have and that Amazon will become even more competitively entrenched as the leading cloud services provider in the world.”

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