Artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure spending is on track to soar once again in 2026. Market research firm Gartner said it anticipates AI infrastructure spending will jump by nearly 42% this year to almost $1.4 trillion. That isn't surprising as major hyperscalers, AI companies, and chipmakers have been ramping up their investments in foundational infrastructure, such as data centers.
That means now is a good time to take a closer look at a couple of AI infrastructure stocks expected to win big from this massive outlay in 2026.
Image source: Alphabet.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing: The prime pick-and-shovel AI infrastructure candidate
Semiconductors are the foundational building blocks of AI, making Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM 4.36%) one of the best ways to benefit from the massive AI infrastructure spending in 2026.
Popularly known as TSMC, it is the go-to manufacturer of chips that power AI data centers. Chip designers like Nvidia, Broadcom, Qualcomm, AMD, Marvell Technology, and even Intel have been tapping TSMC's foundries for their chip manufacturing. So, it doesn't matter which of these companies wins or loses market share in their respective markets; TSMC is going to be the ultimate winner of the huge AI infrastructure investment this year.
This is also evident from the company's guidance for 2026. TSMC CEO C.C. Wei remarked on the company's recent earnings call that its revenue is on track to increase by nearly 30% in 2026. That would be an improvement over the 25% revenue growth TSMC clocked in 2025. Moreover, TSMC's earnings growth should also accelerate this year, considering the increase in prices of its chips.
NYSE: TSM
Key Data Points
Third-party reports suggest that TSMC could increase the price of its advanced chip nodes, which are in hot demand to handle AI workloads in data centers and consumer devices, by 3% to 10% this year. Additionally, the company's most advanced 2-nanometer (nm) chips, which have just gone into mass production, have reportedly been priced at a 10% to 20% premium over the previous flagship process node.
As a result, TSMC's earnings growth in 2026 could be much better than the 34% increase that analysts anticipate. Its bottom line jumped by 51% last year, and it won't be surprising to see this semiconductor stock replicate such growth in 2026 on the back of robust AI chip demand and the price hikes discussed above.
So, TSMC seems primed for another year of outstanding gains, making this stock an ideal investment for anyone looking to capitalize on the AI infrastructure market's growth.
Alphabet: AI chips could unlock a new source of growth for the tech giant
Alphabet (GOOG 1.54%) (GOOGL 1.70%) is primarily known for its advertising and cloud computing business, but the tech giant is poised to make a big splash in the AI infrastructure market as well. That's because key AI companies are reportedly looking to deploy Alphabet's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) in their data centers to process AI workloads.
NASDAQ: GOOG
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In October last year, Google announced a deal with Anthropic, an AI company known for its popular Claude family of large language models (LLMs), to deploy up to 1 million units of its custom TPUs for the latter. Anthropic pointed out in its press release announcing the partnership that the "expansion is worth tens of billions of dollars and is expected to bring well over a gigawatt of capacity online in 2026."
What's worth noting is that it costs around $50 billion to build a 1 gigawatt (GW) data center, and 70% of that cost reportedly goes toward the chips powering the data center. Alphabet, therefore, could see a significant increase in its revenue in 2026 by supplying its chips to Anthropic.
However, Anthropic isn't the only potential customer for Alphabet's AI chips. According to a Bloomberg report released in November last year, Meta Platforms is reportedly in talks to deploy Google's TPUs in its AI data centers in a deal that could be worth billions. Morgan Stanley estimates that Alphabet could see an 11% increase in revenue and a 3% increase in earnings per share for every 500,000 TPUs that it sells.
So, earnings for this Magnificent Seven stock could jump even higher this year than the 7% increase that analysts expect, especially considering that Alphabet could attract more customers following the recent wins that it announced in AI chips. That could pave the way for more upside in Alphabet stock following the healthy gains of 65% it saw in the past year.
