Artificial intelligence is driving exponential capital expenditure growth, with just the top hyperscalers expecting to spend 70% more this year than they did last year. Recent earnings reports from Amazon , Alphabet , Meta and Microsoft revealed planned capex of more than $600 billion combined this year. In 2025, these four companies invested just over $350 billion. The staggering increase was met with mixed reactions from traders, who weighed the level of capex and tried to gauge when the companies would see returns on these investments. Shares of Amazon and Microsoft have respectively plunged 12% and 16% on the year. However, Alphabet stock is down less than 1% in 2026, while Meta has added 1%. It may take time for the answer to this question to materialize, but in the near-term some companies are already profiting from this spending. ‘Early with the heavy spending’ “Basically, the takeaway is that the most competent companies in the world are telling us that we’re still early,” said Gene Munster, co-founder of Deepwater Asset Management, in an interview. “We’re just taking an approach that we need more exposure.” Paul Meeks, head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, said that while more bearish investors believe that spending will collapse after this year, he sees it plateauing or growing more slowly from here. “These guys will not make an announcement for their ’26 capital spending and then during the year, change their mind and pull it back,” he told CNBC. “I’ve talked to the management teams of all the hyperscalers, and they see this as a real competitive advantage for them to be early with the heavy spending.” Meeks also said that while some analysts have cited brewing concerns around certain chipmakers’ profitability given their high spending, it seems unreasonable to expect much evidence of monetization at least at this early stage. “I’m not disappointed, because I never expected to see the goodies or the return on investment at this stage,” he said. On the other hand, investor Ken Mahoney took a less bullish take, noting that not all tech titans are putting their money where it matters the most. “We’re just seeing that there’s no guardrails. Feels like companies are just spending and spending and spending, and hope on the other side they come in first place,” Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management, said in an interview. ‘Pick-and-shovel’ stocks With spending now accelerating, the companies best positioned to capture this next wave of investments might include the “pick-and-shovel” infrastructure stocks that power AI. “Find those companies that are going to be the backbones and the margins should still be there, based on everything that we can see,” Mahoney said. “Have your shopping list, … but then buy them below the market and be more tactical.” One such name, Mahoney said, might be CoreWeave , which provides cloud-based infrastructure to AI companies. “It’ll be really interesting to hear from CoreWeave when they’ve announced that they’ve been able to execute and get more of these data centers online,” he said. CRWV YTD mountain CoreWeave shares year to date Similarly, Meeks highlighted CoreWeave as a name to watch. The company belongs to the group of neocloud pick-and-shovel stocks that should benefit from the spending, he said. Shares of CoreWeave have surged 33% in 2026. Munster also listed Arista Networks , ASML and Snowflake as other potential infrastructure beneficiaries. Shares of Arista Networks and ASML have respectively surged 7% and 34% this year, while Snowflake stock has tumbled 18%. Meanwhile, Mahoney highlighted Oracle as another stock he’s keeping an eye on. While the name is not a buy at its current valuation, he’s watching to see when it might realize returns on its investments. Shares of Oracle have plunged 19% this year and were last trading just under $160. Mahoney and Munster both pointed to Vertiv as another potential winner. A pick-and-shovel stock, Vertiv provides power infrastructure and cooling systems for data centers. Shares surged 24% on Wednesday as its outlook backed the expectation that demand from data centers is materializing. Over the past year, Vertiv shares have doubled. VRT YTD mountain Vertiv Holdings year to date GE Verona is another power play that Mahoney is betting on, although he said he wouldn’t necessarily buy the name at its current levels. The stock has jumped 26% this year and was last trading around $790. Meeks also listed Monolithic Power Systems and Bloom Energy as other derivative power plays to watch. The stocks have gained 32% and 79% this year, respectively. The investors also said that they weren’t discounting the semiconductor names, including Nvidia . “The Street has 60%, 70% revenue growth for Nvidia this year, and the S & P is supposed to grow at maybe 10%,” Meeks said. “[Nvidia’s] at a very, very narrow valuation premium for growth that will swamp the market again this year.” NVDA YTD mountain Nvidia shares year to date Nvidia shares are down around 2% over the past three months, and are up around 2% this year. Besides Nvidia, Meeks listed Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor as his three favorite semiconductor plays that “will definitely continue to be beneficiaries.” Mahoney and Munster echoed Meeks’ bullishness for Broadcom, and Munster also sees potential in Taiwan Semiconductor as well. The stocks are respectively trading 1% lower and 23% higher on the year. Meeks added that Micron was a memory stock he’s also watching now. The stock has ripped 44% higher this year. — CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.
