The artificial intelligence (AI) market boom has been a water-cooler staple for more than three years. Wall Street is still abuzz with AI talk, and it's market-moving stuff.
Early AI leaders have posted triple-digit percentage gains in three years, or even more. As of this writing on Jan. 14, AI server builder Super Micro Computer (SMCI 2.64%) shows a three-year gain of 231% while AI chip designer Nvidia (NVDA 1.53%) rose 1,066%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.52%) index gained 77% in the same period, lifted to above-average returns by the same AI trend.
Image source: Getty Images.
The big gains and easy money may already be behind you with these market-smashing names. But you can still find undervalued and unappreciated winners in the AI space.
According to The Motley Fool's 2026 AI Investor Outlook, most AI investors plan to hold or add to their positions; the believers aren't backing down. I think the next wave of winners might be the companies building the actual infrastructure that makes AI possible.
NYSE: HPE
Key Data Points
The general contractor of the AI revolution
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE +0.58%) isn't the flashiest name in tech anymore, but that's kind of the point.
While Nvidia gets the headlines, HPE is busy bolting those chips into actual AI supercomputers and selling them to enterprises, governments, and research labs. Six of the 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world are HPE systems, thanks to the Cray buyout in 2019.
Their AI systems business has been on a tear. Someone has to assemble all that silicon into something useful, and HPE has decades of experience doing exactly that. Think of HPE as the general contractor of the AI boom. Nvidia supplies the lumber; HPE builds the house.
The stock hasn't gone vertical like the chip designers, which means you're not paying a nosebleed premium for a company that's already in the middle of the action. Today, you can grab HPE shares at the modest valuation of 8.0 times forward earnings or 0.9 times trailing sales.
OTC: SBGSY
Key Data Points
The AI infrastructure giant you never heard of
You've probably never heard of Schneider Electric (SBGSY 1.97%), especially not in investor circles, but you've probably seen their stuff. This French industrial giant with a German-sounding name owns Square-D, the name on electrical panels in half the basements in America.
These days, Schneider is quietly becoming the behind-the-scenes MVP of AI data centers. Somebody has to deliver all that power to Nvidia's hungry chips, and somebody has to keep them from melting into expensive puddles. Schneider does both; their power distribution and cooling systems are showing up in AI facilities worldwide.
Schneider's stock trades over the counter here in the U.S., which isn't for everyone. However, the company itself is a $155 billion European blue chip with 160,000 employees and annual sales of around $42 billion. The 10 largest cloud computing and AI software giants in the world use Schneider and/or Square-D equipment in their data centers -- not exclusively, but you can find Schneider products everywhere.
Not exactly a scrappy start-up, but I'm still impressed if you'd ever heard of this data center nuts-and-bolts giant before.
