AI infrastructure shares Lumentum, Celestica, Seagate beat Nvidia 2025

Nvidia has been the largest infrastructure winner within the synthetic intelligence increase, hovering in worth by nearly thirteenfold because the finish of 2022 to a market cap of $4.6 trillion.

Whereas Nvidia’s rally continued in 2025, buyers betting on different AI knowledge middle performs made much more cash over the previous 12 months.

With 4 of the largest know-how corporations projecting collective expenditures of $380 billion on knowledge middle and infrastructure build-outs this yr, adopted by an anticipated improve within the coming years, Wall Avenue has poured cash into an assortment of distributors which are poised to reap the rewards.

Makers of reminiscence, storage, fiber-optic cables, central processors and different kinds of enterprise {hardware} have rocketed in valued this yr, pushed by pleasure across the AI craze.

Traders shall be scrutinizing these 5 corporations carefully in 2026 now that lofty expectations have been constructed into their inventory costs.

Lumentum, based mostly in San Jose, California, makes switches, transceivers and different optical laser-based components which are wanted for fiber-optic cables. Prospects have sometimes been telecommunications carriers and system makers like Apple, which beforehand used Lumentum components in its FaceID sensor. 

However AI servers additionally want plenty of optical connections. Each graphics processing unit in a rack must be linked to each different GPU. Future AI methods will scale out, which requires optical connections from rack to rack. Ultimately, whole knowledge facilities will should be linked to one another with fiber-optic connections. 

Lumentum’s inventory value has jumped 372% this yr as of Wednesday’s shut, lifting the corporate’s market cap previous $28 billion. Gross sales surged 58% in the latest quarter from a yr earlier to $533 million. 

“Our progress is powered by AI demand spanning our laser chips and optical transceivers inside knowledge facilities, in addition to the interconnected long-haul networks that hyperlink them,” Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston mentioned on an earnings name in November. He mentioned 60% of the corporate’s gross sales now come from cloud and AI infrastructure.

Income is anticipated to rise 58% for the fiscal yr ending in June, however analysts see a slowdown from there to progress of 32% and 15% within the subsequent two years, in line with LSEG.

Western Digital is certainly one of three main onerous drive producers, together with Seagate and Toshiba. Shares of the 55-year-old firm are up nearly 300% this yr.

Along with computing energy, AI corporations want rising quantities of area to retailer purposes and different knowledge. Briefly, knowledge facilities want onerous drives.

Whereas Western Digital makes solid-state onerous drives, which use chips to retailer knowledge, the corporate is greatest identified for its onerous disk drives, which use spinning discs to retailer terabytes or extra of knowledge.

“Information is the gasoline that powers AI, and it’s HDDs that present probably the most dependable, scalable and cost-effective knowledge storage resolution,” CEO Irving Tan mentioned in October on an earnings name. He cited an instance of a hospital that is utilizing an AI that analyzes 7 billion pictures.

In the latest quarter, income rose 27% to $2.82 billion. The corporate says that promoting extra storage for knowledge facilities will enhance profitability as a result of AI corporations want bigger, costlier onerous drives.

Income is anticipated to extend about 23% in fiscal 2026, with progress slowing to 13% in 2027.

In February, Western Digital spun out its flash enterprise as Sandisk, which now has a market cap of about $35 billion, greater than half the worth of Western Digital.

Micron is certainly one of three main reminiscence producers, alongside Samsung and SK Hynix, however the one one based mostly within the U.S.

Synthetic intelligence servers want plenty of reminiscence to retailer and course of huge AI fashions. Chips from Nvidia or Superior Micro Gadgets include scores of gigabytes of probably the most superior reminiscence, known as high-bandwidth reminiscence. The chipmakers are taking all of the reminiscence manufacturing capability, resulting in a worldwide scarcity and driving costs increased.

Micron blew away Wall Avenue estimates for gross sales and earnings in its quarterly report final week, and the inventory is now up 241% for the yr.

Sumit Sadana, Micron’s enterprise chief, mentioned the corporate was “greater than bought out” of its reminiscence chips. In December, it even shuttered its consumer-focused line of reminiscence and solid-state drives to save lots of provide for AI.

Analysts from Morgan Stanley mentioned in a December be aware that Micron’s outcomes confirmed the perfect income and revenue upside within the “historical past of the U.S. semis business” — other than Nvidia.

Income is anticipated to nearly double within the yr ending in August, earlier than dramatically slowing to 24% in fiscal 2027 and fewer than 1% in 2028, in line with LSEG.

Seagate, based 9 years after Western Digital, can also be benefiting from booming demand for storage. The inventory is up 231% this yr.

Gross sales rose 21% to $2.63 billion within the firm’s fiscal third quarter, which ended Oct. 3. The corporate mentioned on the time that 80% of its gross sales go to the info middle market.

“There isn’t any query that AI is reshaping onerous drive demand by elevating the financial worth of knowledge and knowledge storage,” CEO Dave Mosley mentioned on a name with analysts.

Seagate is unlikely to have further onerous drives in stock, Financial institution of America analysts wrote in November, as any further shipments will get claimed shortly. The analysts additionally famous that prospects are signing build-to-order contracts with agency quantity and value commitments.

“The additional items are sometimes bought by hyperscale or different mass capability prospects,” wrote the analysts, who advocate shopping for the inventory.

Seagate’s trajectory appears to be like just like Western Digital. Analysts count on 21% income progress this fiscal yr, adopted by will increase of about 15% and 6% within the subsequent two years, in line with LSEG.

Celestica, based in 1994 as an IBM subsidiary, makes switches that join networks collectively and handle the info and site visitors flowing by them.

The inventory is up greater than 230% this yr.

The corporate sells a lot of its switches to the largest AI patrons. Gross sales rose 28% within the third quarter to $3.19 billion. Analysts count on income progress to climb from 26% this yr to 33% in 2026 and 34% in 2027, in line with LSEG.

Celestica CEO Robert Mionis mentioned on an earnings name in October {that a} hyperscaler just lately approached the corporate to construct components to attach liquid-cooled rack-scale computer systems for AI, and mentioned mass manufacturing is scheduled to start subsequent yr.

One boon for Celestica is surging demand for customized chips known as ASICs, that are much less versatile than GPUs however could be cheaper to function for particular AI purposes.

“Our largest and fastest-growing market presence is inside AI knowledge facilities, supporting high-performance networking and customized ASIC AI/ML compute platforms,” Mionis mentioned.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a be aware Friday that Celestica provides components for Google’s ASIC.

“The corporate ought to profit in 2026 from being the main supplier of Google TPU rack stage options,” the analysts wrote.

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