By Geoffrey Seiler
Publication Date: 2026-05-15 07:55:00
The artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure build-out remains one of the biggest growth drivers the stock market has ever seen. However, the AI market is shifting in a way that could lead to new leaders emerging. The first phase of AI was all about training foundational large language models (LLMs), while the importance of inference and AI agents is dominating the second phase.
Nvidia (NVDA +4.39%) was the big winner in phase 1 of the AI build-out, as its graphics processing units (GPUs) became the engines for training AI models. The company created a wide moat through its CUDA software, which it had earlier seeded in universities and research labs conducting early AI work. As a result, most foundational AI code was written on Nvidia software and optimized for its chips.
Image source: Getty Images.
However, inference is not as technically demanding as LLM training, and developers today tend to work higher up in the software stack on open-source AI frameworks like OpenAI’s Triton, which helps level the playing field. While Nvidia is likely to remain the king of AI training and has better positioned itself for inference through its acquisition of Groq’s assets and its language processing units (LPUs), there are now other companies that look to be big winners with huge growth runways, including Broadcom (AVGO +5.58%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +1.21%).
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