The AI Boom Needs Pipelines More Than Python
The hottest AI trades right now don't have any code in sight. While apps and frontier models capture headlines, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang points to a “five-layer cake” in which storage, chips, and energy underpin the aforementioned two. With an estimated $85T flowing into that foundation, markets are starting to follow the money down the stack.
- Investors have already caught on to semiconductors, which now account for 17% of the S&P 500 — but the constraint is shifting downstream.
- That transition is already showing up in earnings — Caterpillar beat expectations, raising its outlook as AI demand boosted revenue 22% from last year.
Pull back the curtain: Beyond, three infrastructure names are catching attention. Williams moves ~16% of US natural gas, and a new pipeline just broke ground. Then, wiring oligopolist Eaton posted 16 consecutive quarters of hyperscaler bookings growth, running backlogs into 2027. Finally, Cameco, the largest pure-play Western uranium miner, has seen four Big Tech firms sign nuclear deals over the past 18 months. When it comes to being boring, these three aren’t complaining.
