Market sentiment towards artificial intelligence (AI) is currently mixed. While this was the number one sector to invest in from 2023 to 2025, investors are a bit more selective and skeptical in 2026. They see that AI hyperscalers are spending record amounts on capital improvements, yet the returns on those costs are yet to come (if they come at all).
Investors considering AI stocks should be patient. The truth is, most companies haven’t started using AI in a day. Once they do, they will need far more computing capacity than is currently available. Those who are bullish on the AI trend should see this short-term skepticism as a long-term AI buying opportunity.
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The use of AI is growing rapidly, but there is still a large majority of the population that does not use it. Businesses are still lagging behind, and according to research conducted by The Motley Fool, only 18% of businesses currently use AI. This number is expected to increase to 22% in the next few months, indicating rapid adoption. But businesses are still a long way from the AI-first approach we keep hearing about.
Large companies have slightly more technical knowledge and have a usage rate of 27%, but this is still below half. There is clearly a lot of room for using AI. AI computing resources are still limited, with relatively little use even among the business community. As a result, there is still a huge investment opportunity in AI.
We’re going to need a lot of infrastructure, and that brings to mind three stock options that can grow.
By 2030, McKinsey & Company projects that nearly $7 trillion in data center capital expenditures will be needed to meet the demands of AI computing. For reference, AI hyperscalers are expected to spend around $650 billion this year, so there is still a long way to go to reach the threshold needed to achieve this goal.
Two companies that will grow from sustainable development Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ) and Taiwan Semiconductor production (NYSE: TSM ). Nvidia makes graphics processing units (GPUs), which have become the computing unit of choice for facilitating AI workflows. While there are alternatives, none have the full-stack capabilities that Nvidia GPUs have and the ability to move workloads from provider to provider. Investing in Nvidia is a bet that more GPUs are needed to come online to process all the AI workloads — a pretty safe bet.
