AI Trade Beyond Nvidia: Uncovering the Next Wave of Infrastructure and Data-Layer Winners

The AI revolution is no longer confined to the algorithms and chips that power it. As the industry matures, the focus is shifting to the infrastructure and data-layer ecosystems that enable scalable, efficient, and sustainable AI deployment. While Nvidia remains a dominant force in AI hardware, investors are increasingly turning their attention to companies building the next-generation infrastructure and data pipelines that will fuel the global AI economy.

Infrastructure: Beyond the GPU Giants

The AI infrastructure landscape is diversifying rapidly, with new players addressing bottlenecks in compute, energy efficiency, and scalability. CoreWeave, a GPU-as-a-service provider, has emerged as a disruptor by offering high-performance computing at lower latency and cost than traditional cloud providersAI Beyond Platforms - How Data Will Unlock New Value in 2025^[1]. Its public listing on NASDAQ in 2025 underscores growing institutional confidence in its modelThe 20 Hottest AI Cloud Companies: The 2025 CRN AI 100^[4].

Meanwhile, Oracle has redefined its role in the AI era. A $300 billion, five-year compute deal with OpenAI positions Oracle as a critical infrastructure backbone for AI training and deploymentTop 9 AI Infrastructure Companies & Applications^[2]. This contrasts with legacy hyperscalers like Amazon and Microsoft, as Oracle leverages its enterprise data assets and GPU partnerships to capture a significant share of the AI infrastructure marketTop 9 AI Infrastructure Companies & Applications^[2].

Energy consumption remains a critical challenge for AI data centers. Iren Ltd., once a Bitcoin miner, has pivoted to AI infrastructure by acquiring GPU fleets and achieving a 226% year-over-year revenue surge in Q4 20253 AI Infrastructure Stocks Riding the Coming Power Crunch^[3]. Similarly, Applied Digital is constructing AI-optimized data centers like the Polaris Forge campus, designed to scale to 1 gigawatt of capacity3 AI Infrastructure Stocks Riding the Coming Power Crunch^[3]. Poet Technologies is tackling the energy bottleneck directly with optical interposer platforms that use light for communication, reducing power consumption while boosting speed3 AI Infrastructure Stocks Riding the Coming Power Crunch^[3].

Data-Layer Innovations: The Hidden Engine of AI

High-quality data is the lifeblood of AI models, and 2025 has seen a surge in companies specializing in data curation, governance, and infrastructure. Snowflake has solidified its position as a leader in enterprise data management, enabling organizations to organize and enrich data for AI trainingTop 9 AI Infrastructure Companies & Applications^[2]. Its recent integration with Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake—open table formats that support ACID compliance and schema evolution—has made it a cornerstone of modern data lakesAI Beyond Platforms - How Data Will Unlock New Value in 2025^[1].

Scale AI and Bright Data are redefining data annotation and collection. Scale AI's reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) services align AI models with human preferences, while Bright Data's web scraping APIs and proxies provide vast, high-quality datasets for trainingTop 9 AI Infrastructure Companies & Applications^[2]. These companies are critical for applications ranging from large language models to domain-specific AI agents.

Emerging startups are also making waves. OpenEvidence, featured on the Forbes AI 50 list, is developing an AI-powered search platform for medical professionalsThe 20 Hottest AI Cloud Companies: The 2025 CRN AI 100^[4]. Anysphere (Cursor) is revolutionizing developer workflows with its AI code editor, and Exponential-Technology.ai is pioneering macroeconomic forecasting using AI-first data infrastructureAI Beyond Platforms - How Data Will Unlock New Value in 2025^[1].

The Future of AI Infrastructure: Open Standards and Agentic AI

The shift toward open standards is reshaping data infrastructure. Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake are becoming foundational for multi-cloud interoperability, allowing enterprises to avoid vendor lock-in while maintaining governance and performanceAI Beyond Platforms - How Data Will Unlock New Value in 2025^[1]. Google Cloud's Fast Tier and AWS Glue's neutral catalog capabilities further illustrate the industry's move toward flexible, low-latency storage and unified data accessAI Beyond Platforms - How Data Will Unlock New Value in 2025^[1].

On the application layer, agentic AI is emerging as a transformative force. AI systems are evolving from task-specific tools to autonomous workflows that manage end-to-end operations in industries like healthcare and finance3 AI Infrastructure Stocks Riding the Coming Power Crunch^[3]. This shift demands robust data infrastructure to ensure scalability, reliability, and real-time processing.

Investment Outlook

The AI infrastructure and data-layer sectors are entering a phase of explosive growth, driven by demand for energy-efficient compute, open standards, and high-quality data. While Nvidia's dominance in AI chips is undeniable, the next trillion-dollar wave will be powered by companies like Oracle, CoreWeave, Snowflake, and Poet Technologies. Investors should also keep an eye on startups leveraging open-source innovations and agentic AI, as these will define the next frontier of the AI economy.

As the industry evolves, the winners will be those that address the hidden challenges of AI—energy, data quality, and interoperability. For forward-thinking investors, the message is clear: the future of AI lies beyond the GPU giants.