The Next Frontier in AI Investing: Beyond Chips to 'Pick-and-Shovel' Infrastructure Winners

The AI revolution is no longer confined to the realm of algorithms and silicon. As we enter 2026, the focus of capital allocation is shifting from overvalued tech giants to the unsung heroes of the AI boom: the infrastructure providers enabling the next era of computing. While Wall Street's attention remains fixated on NVIDIA and its peers, the real alpha lies in the "pick-and-shovel" companies building the power grids, cooling systems, data centers, and storage solutions that underpin AI's exponential growth.

The AI Infrastructure Tsunami: $600 Billion and Counting

According to a Bloomberg report, global AI infrastructure spending is projected to reach $490 billion in 2026, with the top five hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle) leading the charge with $602 billion in combined capital expenditures. This surge is driven by the transition from model training to inference at scale, a shift that demands unprecedented compute power and infrastructure resilience.

The implications are staggering. By 2030, data center infrastructure spending alone could surpass $1 trillion, fueled by AI's insatiable appetite for energy, cooling, and physical space. The result? A seismic reallocation of capital toward power generation, liquid cooling, and modular construction firms-sectors that are still undervalued despite their critical role in the AI ecosystem.

Power and Cooling: The Overlooked Bottlenecks

As AI workloads intensify, power and cooling have emerged as the most immediate constraints. Data centers now consume 415 terawatt-hours annually, a figure expected to triple to 945 terawatt-hours by 2030. Traditional air-cooling systems are obsolete; the industry is pivoting to direct-to-chip liquid cooling, a technology that can handle the thermal loads of AI-native high-performance computing (HPC) architectures.

Vertiv (VRTX) is the poster child for this transition. The company's recent acquisition of PurgeRite for $1 billion has supercharged its thermal management capabilities, while its partnership with NVIDIA ensures it stays one GPU generation ahead. Despite a lofty P/E ratio of 59.6x, Vertiv's EV/EBITDA of 31.6x reflects its dominant position in a market where demand is outpacing supply.

Meanwhile, SPX Technologies (SPXC) is quietly building a cooling empire. Its $300 million acquisition of Crawford United has expanded its HVAC capabilities, and its P/E ratio of 26.95x and EV/EBITDA of 23.48x suggest it's still undervalued relative to its growth trajectory. Startups like Accelsius and JetCool are also disrupting the space with direct-to-chip solutions, but their scale and liquidity make them less accessible to institutional investors.

Construction: The New Gold Rush

The construction sector is experiencing a renaissance as data centers outbid traditional commercial projects for land and labor. According to Deloitte, data centers and energy infrastructure will drive modest U.S. construction growth in 2026, despite rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks.

Fluor (FLR) and AECOM (ACM) are the two most compelling plays here. Fluor's trailing P/E of 1.83x and price-to-sales ratio of 0.44x are absurdly low for a company with a $500 million backlog in AI-related projects. Its EV/EBITDA of -3.8x may look unattractive, but this reflects one-time charges and a depressed earnings base-its forward P/E of 17.64x tells a different story.

AECOM, on the other hand, trades at a P/E of 20.1–23.1x and an EV/EBITDA of 11.78x, metrics that align with its role as a prime contractor for hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google. With AI data center power demand projected to rise 10x by 2035, these construction firms are poised to compound at infrastructure-like margins.

Data Storage: The Hidden Workhorse

While storage may seem like a commodity, the AI era is redefining its value. Companies like Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate (STX) are benefiting from a surge in demand for high-capacity nearline HDDs and HAMR drives. WDC's nearline HDD sales surged 31% in Q4 2025, and its forward P/E of 12.17x is a steal compared to the industry average of 17.23x.

Micron Technology (MU) is another standout. With a forward P/E of 12.17x and strategic partnerships with NVIDIA and AMD, Micron is supplying the memory and storage solutions that power AI's next-gen workloads. Its valuation discount to peers reflects skepticism about the memory market, but AI's insatiable demand for data storage will likely close this gap by 2027.

The Big Picture: Why Infrastructure Wins

The AI arms race is no longer a software or hardware story-it's a physical infrastructure story. As regulatory frameworks tie energy consumption to compliance and sustainability reporting, the companies that master power efficiency, cooling innovation, and modular construction will dominate the next decade.

While NVIDIA and its peers trade at stratospheric multiples, the infrastructure plays discussed here offer a compelling risk/reward profile. Their valuations are anchored to tangible assets and long-term contracts, making them less susceptible to the volatility of speculative tech stocks.

For investors seeking to capitalize on AI's next phase, the message is clear: dig deeper than the chips. The real gold is in the shovel.