The artificial intelligence (AI) trend's biggest winners from here may not be the companies building the next chatbot or the next cutting-edge chip. They could be the businesses helping support the infrastructure that makes the entire AI economy possible.
These two companies sit at critical points in that infrastructure: One supplies the hardware that connects the servers that run AI, and the other helps engineers design the chips that make them smarter. If AI spending continues to take off, their stocks are both safe bets for the next decade.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Arista Networks
Arista Networks (ANET -0.90%) lives where AI meets the physical world, in the dense webs of cables and switches that shuttle data among thousands of accelerators and servers in an AI data center. In 2026, the company surpassed $3 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time and was added to the Fortune 500, which shows that it's no longer a niche vendor. Management described networking as the "central nervous system" of modern infrastructure, from clients and campus networks to data and AI centers, and that language fits the scale of what AI training actually needs.
Arista focuses on the hardware needed to run large AI systems. Its new 7060XE7 switches are built to move huge amounts of data between AI chips, with air- and liquid-cooled options that help customers fit more computing power into each rack without overwhelming data center cooling systems.
In simple terms, Arista is trying to make AI networks faster, denser, and more energy-efficient. Its new liquid-cooled optics could also reduce the number of networking racks needed and free up valuable data center floor space. That strategy could pay off over time because cloud infrastructure providers and enterprise customers rarely replace their networking vendors once their systems are in place.
NYSE: ANET
Key Data Points
2. Synopsys
Where Arista wires AI systems together, Synopsys (SNPS +0.52%) is trying to make the process of designing the chips that power them much faster. Synopsys sells electronic design automation (EDA) software. In simple terms, this is the toolchain that engineers use to turn ideas into the blueprints for finished silicon.
As chips have grown more complex and companies have poured more of their efforts into developing AI accelerators, the pain of testing, debugging, and tuning chip designs has ballooned. Synopsys is leaning into that problem with its own flavor of AI.
In July, the company announced agentic AI workflows developed with Microsoft and used by Advanced Micro Devices to automate large portions of the chip design lifecycle, from specifications to finished silicon.
At this year's DAC, The Chips to Systems Conference, Synopsys went further, showcasing "fully autonomous, long-running agents" for chip verification and electronics system design, built on its own AgentEngineer platform and Nvidia's AI infrastructure. The company described verification agents that can orchestrate entire test cycles and computer-aided engineering workflows that can handle thermal design almost entirely on their own.
For investors, this means Synopsys' AI is being baked into the tools other companies rely on to design every new AI processor and networking chip. If Synopsys succeeds in embedding its offerings in their workflows, each new wave of AI hardware could deepen its moat.
NASDAQ: SNPS
Key Data Points
How investors can use these two names
Arista and Synopsys are both pick-and-shovel plays on AI, but they are tied to entirely different choke points. Arista is pushing to make its networking hardware the default fabric for AI data centers that are running out of space, power, and cooling capacity. Synopsys aims to make its software the default choice for engineers to manage the complexity of designing the chips that power those data centers.
Neither depends on anything like chatbots or image generators. Both are tied to the broader, slower trend of more computation moving into AI-heavy silicon and networks over the next decade.
For investors with a 10-year horizon, these stocks look like candidates for a buy-and-hold basket built around AI infrastructure rather than speculative trades. Position sizing still matters because AI spending cycles, competition, and customer concentration can all introduce volatility to their share price performance.
In my view, starting with small positions in Arista and Synopsis, holding on to them through the inevitable downturns, and letting time and execution do the work would be the right way to approach investing in these two AI stocks.
