By Justin Pope, The Motley Fool
Publication Date: 2026-01-25 14:05:00
Don’t overthink the AI boom. This year’s AI winners are sitting in plain sight.
It’s been a little over three years since artificial intelligence (AI) became the hottest topic on Wall Street. Nothing lasts forever, but it’s hard to envision the AI boom ending this year. At least, not while billions of dollars continue to flow into data centers, chips, and other AI infrastructure.
So, how is the AI space shaping up for 2026? Consensus estimates from Goldman Sachs indicate that AI companies could spend more than $500 billion on capital expenditures this year. That would be an increase of more than $100 billion from 2025.
In other words, the AI train is chugging along faster than ever. Which stocks will benefit the most from all this AI spending? Recent developments point to some familiar faces.
Here is why I predict that Nvidia (NVDA +1.60%) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM +2.29%) will be this year’s big AI winners.
Image source: Nvidia.
The top AI GPU company is launching a new chip
Nvidia has grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years. Its GPU chips are the hardware of choice for AI hyperscalers, utilizing Nvidia’s CUDA programming to build massive data centers where thousands of GPU chips work together as clusters to train and operate AI models.
The company’s Hopper GPU architecture helped it capture the AI data center market early on. Since then, Nvidia’s customers have mostly stuck with its GPUs, which have a reported market share of 85% to 90%….