#data-center-infrastructure

#data-center-infrastructure

But zoom out, and the picture changes dramatically. The stock is up 31% over the past month and 63% year-to-date, riding a wave of AI storage demand that's reshaping the data center landscape. While the broader semiconductor sector, tracked by the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NYSEARCA:SMH), gained 1.51% this week and 13% year-to-date, Western Digital's outperformance tells a specific story about who's winning in AI infrastructure.

Seagate Technology ( NASDAQ:STX) has delivered one of the market's most impressive performances to start 2026. The stock has surged 56.6% year-to-date through February 12, crushing the S&P 500 over the same period. Here's what's more impressive: Seagate is the 5th best performer in the entire S&P500,meaning it's outperforming 99% of other large-cap stocks so far this year! Even more striking: the rally extends a remarkable 335% climb over the past year, transforming what was once a cyclical storage play into an AI infrastructure darling.

Seagate Technology ( ) reported its fiscal second-quarter 2026 earnings yesterday, and the results beat Wall Street expectations on both revenue and earnings per share. The company brought in $2.83 billion in revenue, topping the consensus estimate of around $2.75 billion. On the bottom line, non-GAAP earnings came in at $3.11 per share, well above the expected $2.83. This strong showing was largely driven by robust demand for high-capacity storage solutions needed for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as data centers handling massive AI workloads.

The hardest part about investing in artificial intelligence isn't believing in the technology-it's deciding which companies will actually profit from it. Will chip makers dominate? Cloud providers? Software platforms? Infrastructure builders? The answer is probably all of them, which is why iShares Future AI & Tech ETF (NYSEARCA:ARTY) has become popular for investors wanting broad AI exposure without concentrated bets.

As 2025 comes to an end, it seems fitting to look at how Microsoft's Azure hyperscale cloud is planning to address the second half of the decade. As has become traditional, Azure CTO Mark Russinovich gave his usual look at that future in his presentations at Ignite, this time split into two separate talks on infrastructure and software. The first presentation looked at how the underlying infrastructure of Azure is developing and how the software you use is adapting to use the new hardware.

Nvidia announced Monday that it plans to invest $100 billion in OpenAI in a deal that would give the ChatGPT maker a major leg up in the AI race - access to 10 gigawatts worth of the high-powered GPUs it needs to satisfy its mushrooming growth strategy. What the deal can't guarantee - and what neither company mentioned - is how OpenAI will access the enormous amount of electricity needed to fire up those chips.

( BroadcomNASDAQ:AVGO) has been a standout performer, soaring 120% from its April lows and delivering an astonishing 500% return over the past three years. This meteoric rise is fueled by Broadcom's strategic pivot into artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in data centers, where its custom AI chips and networking solutions are in high demand. The company reportedly ( controls around 70% of the custom AI chip market , serving hyperscale clients like major tech giants Google and Meta PlatformsNASDAQ:META) building AI infrastructure.